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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw 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. A deep chill permeated the air.

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 rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. 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 typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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