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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from 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 weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday 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 new attacks, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, 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 the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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