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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, starting from 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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. 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—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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