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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, 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. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call 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 unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams 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. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, 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 were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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