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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. 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 personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. 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—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism