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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements 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 Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in 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. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

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

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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