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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek 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 roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened 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 stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

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

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? 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 primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism