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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled 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 struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare 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