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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. 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 freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure 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 outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, 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 figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. 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 lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism