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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly 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 severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of 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 overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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