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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students 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 usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily 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? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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