During a Violent Storm, I Could Hear. This is Christmas in Gaza
The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if heâd manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.
A Walk Through a City of Tents
Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.
As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.
The Night Escalates
In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.
During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called âpoor conditionsâ. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.
The Cruelest Season
Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arbaâiniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.
But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.
Fragile Shelters
Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 packed sanctuaries.
A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.
Students in the Storm
As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.
In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practicesâassignments, deadlinesâturn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for studentsâ safety, warmth and access to shelter.
On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?
Political Failure
Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.
This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.
A Preventable Suffering
The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. 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 disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism
