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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back 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 following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism