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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along 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 rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, 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. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism