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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly 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 severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, 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 far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 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 passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath 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 threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

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 shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

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; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects 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. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism