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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk 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, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced 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 Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements 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

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings 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 displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it 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 causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques 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 disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism