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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

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

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques 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 neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism