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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Place 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 falling water and the roar 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. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings 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 lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

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 individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining 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 bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

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 learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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