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It was about 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. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, 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’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? 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 largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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