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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening 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 only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? 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 freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

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 remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were 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 leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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