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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. 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. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 torrential rain and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. 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—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, 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 still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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