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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City 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, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly 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 severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through 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 danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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