During a Fierce Storm, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This Defines 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, leaving me to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. 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 packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

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; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by 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 fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism