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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. 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. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know 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. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result 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

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me 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 overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes 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 disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism