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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist 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 City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside 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 grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from 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 weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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