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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, 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 stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down 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 torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, 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 succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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