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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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