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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy 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 Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement 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 fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me 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 razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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