In the midst of a Fierce Gale, I Could Hear. This Marks Christmas in Gaza

It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know 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. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. 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, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

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 deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. 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 usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism