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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. 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 misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism