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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City 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, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams 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, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies 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. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it 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 faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? 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 largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. 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. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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