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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

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 falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. 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, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

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; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, 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 on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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