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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, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated 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 are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle 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 possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking 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 what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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