Amid a Fierce Gale, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This Defines Christmas in Gaza

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, 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 occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. 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, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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