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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts 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 kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health 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