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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back 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 merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down 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 falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. 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—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. 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 most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism