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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism