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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. 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 endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, 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 young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. 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 hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism