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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed 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, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas 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 most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism