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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, 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 generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. 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. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. 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’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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