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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned 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, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, 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 lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. 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, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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