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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered 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

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me 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.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

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 join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness 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 precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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