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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. 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. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, 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 severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, 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 remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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