During a Violent Gale, The Panicked Screams of Children in Tents Outside Echoed. This is Christmas in Gaza
The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasnât surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didnât seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped 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 Journey Through a Place of Tents
While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.
When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.
The Midnight Hour Intensifies
During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.
During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called âpoor conditionsâ. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.
The Cruelest Season
Locals call this time of year as al-Arbaâiniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.
But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome 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 died of exposure to the cold.
A Life in Tents
Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.
A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.
Students in the Storm
In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.
In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practicesâassignments, deadlinesâturn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over studentsâ security, heat and access to shelter.
On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?
Political Failure
Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.
This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.
A Preventable Suffering
The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.
The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism
