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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly 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 brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. 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, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. 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 cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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