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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined 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 switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. 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 “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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from 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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to 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 were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, 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; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. 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. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism