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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist 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 City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

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 shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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