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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. 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 City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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