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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle 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 taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to 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 witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. 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. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism