Amid a Fierce Gale, I Could Hear. This is Christmas in Gaza

The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from 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 endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday 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 incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were 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 on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism