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The time was about 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 walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered 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. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle 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? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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 reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, 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 individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought 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 damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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