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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday 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 a short distance later the rain became a downpour. 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 as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place 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, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps 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.

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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by 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 witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. 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 distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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