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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, 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. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought 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 vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism