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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until 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. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism