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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism