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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk 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, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. 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 privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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