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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City 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 torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad 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, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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