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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

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 deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to 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 bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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