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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place 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, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid 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 is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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 are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under 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 threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. 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 weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

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

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism