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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had 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 took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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