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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement 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, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism