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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. 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 overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism