During a Fierce Storm, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This Marks Christmas in Gaza

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed 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 Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined 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 understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from 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 weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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