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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed 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. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing 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, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter 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 war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

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; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies 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 neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism