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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked 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, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. 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 overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, 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 thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. 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 most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism