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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil 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 most bitter forty 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 reveals its full force. Typically, 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 danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques 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 neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism