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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

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 war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

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 were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

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 attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism