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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. 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 suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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 shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by 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 hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from 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 distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism