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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth 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, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past 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, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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