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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked 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 stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism