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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I switched 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 is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil 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

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted 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.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful 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. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism