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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, 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 young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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