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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, 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 stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How 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. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism