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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. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place 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 rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing 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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me 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 overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, 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, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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