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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge 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 is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement 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, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? 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 the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain 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. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism