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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way 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 just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din 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 light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. 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 Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, 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 residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health 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