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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City 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, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning 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 have not been found. These incidents 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, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, 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 uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? 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 scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism