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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey 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 rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure 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 new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, 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; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism