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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism