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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past 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 reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought 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 reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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