During a Raging Gale, The Panicked Screams of Children in Tents Outside Echoed. This is Christmas in Gaza

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful 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 Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away 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 relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by 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, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear 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 rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful 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 learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism