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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, 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, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

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, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering 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, inundated temporary settlements 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.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

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 individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism