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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, 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 fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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