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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, 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 a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

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 individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. 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 should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism