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It was about 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 only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed 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

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched 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 thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. 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. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

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 profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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 moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? 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 wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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