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It 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, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated 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 packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

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 extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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