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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, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. 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, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed 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. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place 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, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. 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 should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by 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 precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism