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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down 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 roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? 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.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through 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 “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from 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. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season 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 new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, 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 observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands 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 defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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