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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps 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 Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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