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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk 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, just the noise 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 illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. 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—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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