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It was around 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. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured 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 Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to 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 reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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