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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly 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 have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded 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 mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism