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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

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 profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism