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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome 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

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, 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 distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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