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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable 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 should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, 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 caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism