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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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 most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, 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 still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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