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It was about 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, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Landscape 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 roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure 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 result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. 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 vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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