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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged 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 Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad 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 fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

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 bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about 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 aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism