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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

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 defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

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 young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism