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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, 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 agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism