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The time was approximately 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 suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along 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 rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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 reveals its full force. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

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 individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease 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 tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism