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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place 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, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until 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 none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. 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—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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