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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me 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 packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, without heating.

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; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. 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 fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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