In the midst of a Violent Storm, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This is Christmas in Gaza

It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy 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 Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from 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. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism