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The clock read about 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. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, 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 cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge 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 is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad 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, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. 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 usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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