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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek 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, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured 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 quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, 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 hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism