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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned 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 only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. 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 incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism