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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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