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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way 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 a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call 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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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 ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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