Amid a Violent Storm, I Could Hear. This Marks Christmas in Gaza

The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm 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 poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Landscape 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, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism