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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

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

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, 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 ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. 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 usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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