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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, 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 fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, 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 saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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