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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. 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 freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar 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 huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under 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 threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. 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 normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism