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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. 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 spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. 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 Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement 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, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, 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 young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. 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, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism