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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time 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 cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, 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 completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, 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 essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. 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. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism