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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday 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 following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. 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, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome 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.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

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 profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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