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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening 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 stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, 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. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism