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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing 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. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. 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 cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. 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—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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