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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from 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.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift 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 hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival 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