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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils 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 usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived 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 caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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