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The clock read around 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 merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped 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 Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down 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 taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects 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. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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