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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into 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 grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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 reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday 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 caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism