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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil 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

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps 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, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. 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 fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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