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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under 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 threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

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; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking 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 residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism