During a Fierce Tempest, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This Marks 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, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. 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 cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism