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

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. 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. 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. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing 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. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season 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, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism