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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, 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 intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place 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, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal 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 unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning 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. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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