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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism