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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, 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 young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism