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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

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 the soil into mud. In other places, 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant 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. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism