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

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. 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 “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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