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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along 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 roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, 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 most bitter forty 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 unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

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 attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? 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 largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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