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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst 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, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child 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. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; 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 lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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