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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, 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 thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled 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 entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried 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 Harshest Days

Residents refer to 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted 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 packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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