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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened 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 couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. 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. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know 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 reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism