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The time 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, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened 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 Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid 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 are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, 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 harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute 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 cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, 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

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing 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 did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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