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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped 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 Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

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; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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