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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near 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 as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along 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 falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled 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 suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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