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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. 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.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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