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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed 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 Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down 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 torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, beginning in late December and persisting to 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. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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