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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down 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 roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty 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 reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses 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, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it 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 weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded 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’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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