In the midst of a Raging Storm, I Could Hear. This is Christmas in Gaza
It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasnât surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if heâd have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.
A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents
While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.
As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.
The Midnight Hour Worsens
During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.
During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called âinclement weatherâ. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.
The Cruelest Season
Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arbaâiniya; 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. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.
But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.
A Life in Tents
Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.
A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.
A Teacher's Anguish
As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.
In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practicesâassignments, deadlinesâtransform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about studentsâ security, heat and proximity to protection.
On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?
Aid and Abandonment
Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.
This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.
An Unnecessary Pain
The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.
This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism
