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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. 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—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness 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 stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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