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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle 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 enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, 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 persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. 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 ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder 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 no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not 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 hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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