Amid a Raging Storm, I Could Hear. This Defines Christmas in Gaza

The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening 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 couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, 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 failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep 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 pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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