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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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