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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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