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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, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets 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. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through 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. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

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; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, 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. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease 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 precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism