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

It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned 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 quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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