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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism