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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 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. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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