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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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