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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers 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. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence 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 succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

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, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

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

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness 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 vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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