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It was 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. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of 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 lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies 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 remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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