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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into 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, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism