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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

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, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to 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 none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold 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, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained 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 threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? 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 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. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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