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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered 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, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. 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 faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, 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?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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