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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy 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 Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, 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 individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for 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? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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