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It was about 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 I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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