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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down 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 occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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