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It 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, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. 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 exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape 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 roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start 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 cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims 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 structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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