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It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened 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 Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge 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? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

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 faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded 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 largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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