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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along 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 torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl 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 buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. 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, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder 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 what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, 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 fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism