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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined 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. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. 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, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past 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 precarious these dwellings are 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 several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

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 deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding 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 prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. 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 repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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