Amid a Fierce Gale, I Could Hear. This Defines Christmas in Gaza

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered 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, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle 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 enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child 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. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? 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 a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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