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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped 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 Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through 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. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought 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 precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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