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It was around 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, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy 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 Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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 structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread 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, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism