During a Fierce Tempest, 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, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres 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 baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday 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. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. 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—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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