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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, 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 totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from 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 saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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