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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. 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 Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced 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 far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reminded me 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 cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners 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 usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies 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