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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain 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. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings 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 repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. 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. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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