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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. 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 improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health 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