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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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