During a Violent Gale, The Cries of Children in Tents Pierced the Night. This is Christmas in Gaza
The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. 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 shared brief remarks during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if heâd have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.
A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents
As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.
As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.
The Night Intensifies
During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.
For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called âinclement weatherâ. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.
The Harshest Days
Palestinians know 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 no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.
But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child 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 were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.
Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.
A Teacher's Anguish
In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.
In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practicesâtasks, schedulesâturn into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for studentsâ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.
On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?
The Humanitarian Shortfall
Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.
This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.
A Symbolic Season
What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.
The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism
