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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled 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 endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

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; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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