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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl 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. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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