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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, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed 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. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, 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. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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