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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. 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. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled 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 suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by 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 observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat 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 while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

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 essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism