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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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