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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

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 unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking 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 several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, 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 faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering 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 arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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