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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres 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 as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist 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 City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call 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 shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, 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 countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. 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 typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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