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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place 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, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant 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. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, 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 individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism