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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape 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, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child 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. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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