During a Fierce Tempest, The Panicked Screams of Children in Tents Outside Echoed. This is Christmas in Gaza

The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along 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 rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to 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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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