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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out 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, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din 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. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 continuing through 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 no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism