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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist 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 Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in 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. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking 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 reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism