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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place 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 rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. 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, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, 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 died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, 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 faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease 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 lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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