In the midst of a Fierce Tempest, The Panicked Screams of Children in Tents Outside Echoed. This Marks Christmas in Gaza

It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist 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 City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, 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, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living 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 mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism