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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

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. In other places, this might be called “bad 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, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, 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 now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism