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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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, 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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. 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, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, 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 access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism