During a Raging Storm, I Could Hear. This is Christmas in Gaza

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

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; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism