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It was about 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 I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence 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

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism