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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from 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 none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. 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. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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