Today, Saturday 21 December peace campaigners in Orkney will gather despite the strong winds which have disrupted the islands transport links. Every Saturday since October 2023 they have met outside St Magnus Cathedral, Broad Street, Kirkwall between 1 and 2pm, determined to do so until there is a lasting ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the unhindered delivery of aid to the people of Gaza.

In Gaza, winter has also arrived. Over one million people will try to shelter from the rain and cold temperatures in makeshift tents. There is no adequate sanitation and the rains will add to the streams of filth running through where streets once were.

There’s a flood alert on for Orkney. We can hunker down in our homes. In Gaza flooding has caused damage to the makeshift shelters. Humanitarian teams have only been able to provide assistance to 285,000 people to carry out repairs between September and late November, because deliveries of materials have been limited. For almost a million people there will be no protection from the winter weather.

OCHA (the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) reported that between 1 and 16 December, out of 339 planned aid operations across the Gaza Strip requiring coordination with the Israeli authorities, 30 per cent (102) were approved, 42 per cent (141) were denied, 18 per cent (62) were impeded, and 10 per cent (34) were cancelled, owing to logistical and security challenges.

In Orkney winter brings with it the season for sniffles, coughs and flu. In Gaza winter has brought  a rise in infections including respiratory illnesses, diarrhoea and jaundice. In 2024, over 1.2 million respiratory infections were recorded, along with 570,000 cases of acute diarrhoea. Children are the worst affected. Already severely malnourished children and babies will not have the strength to survive.

The water from the rains runs through where buildings and homes once were. In the rubble of their wrecked communities people have constructed shelters. The filthy water collects and displaces the collapsed masonry making those makeshift shelters extremely unstable.

Christina Rosetti described a bleak midwinter in 1872, a favourite carol which will be sung in church services in Orkney. In Gaza, people will experience a truly bleak winter.  UNICEF Communication Specialist Rosalia Bollen speaking at the Palais des Nations in Geneva described the conditions for children in Gaza:

“Children in Gaza are cold, sick and traumatized. Hunger and malnutrition, and the dire living conditions more broadly, continue to put the lives of children at risk. Right now, over 96% of women and children in Gaza cannot meet their basic nutritional needs. Most are surviving on rationed flour, lentils, pasta, and canned food—a diet that slowly compromises their health.

“In November, an average of 65 truckloads of assistance entered Gaza, compared to 500 truckloads daily, before the war – and when Gaza still had internal food production capacity. The most northern part of Gaza has been under a near total siege for 75 days now. Humanitarian assistance has been largely unable to reach the children in need for more than 10 weeks.

“Gaza must be one of the most heartbreaking places on earth for humanitarians. Every small effort to save a child’s life is undone by fierce devastation. For over 14 months, children have been at the sharp edge of this nightmare, with more than 14,500 children reportedly killed, thousands more injured.

“Last week I met with Saad, five years old. He lost his eyesight in a bombing, and sustained a head injury and burns. When I met him this week, he told me: “my eyes went to heaven before I did”. As we were talking, a plane flew overhead. He froze, screamed, and clutched for his mother. Seeing this boy, recently rendered blind, in such deep distress was unbearable.

“As we approach the end of the year, a time when the world strives to celebrate family, peace, and togetherness, in Gaza the reality for over a million children is fear, utter deprivation and unimaginable suffering.

“The war on children in Gaza stands as a stark reminder of our collective responsibility. A generation of children is enduring the brutal violation of their rights and the destruction of their futures.

“The stories I heard over the past months will torment me forever. Let me share one: this summer we met with a baby boy, also named Saad, he was seven months old. His mother’s miracle after years of trying to conceive. He weighed just 2.7 kilograms at 7 months—a fraction of what a baby his age should. Eleven days ago, his fragile body gave out after not getting enough nutritious food. He was born in war and left this world without being given a chance to live in peace. I cannot even start to imagine the depth of suffering of his parents. The suffering is not merely physical. It is also psychological.

“Winter has now descended on Gaza. Children are cold, wet, and barefoot. Many still wear summer clothes. With cooking gas gone, many are searching through rubble for scraps of plastic to burn.  Diseases are ravaging the little bodies of children all while hospitals are destitute and continuously attacked. Health care is on its knees: hospitals lack medicines, medical supplies and doctors. This is worsened by the continuation of a near total electricity black out, making hospitals and other critical infrastructure entirely dependent on meagre fuel imports.

“There are immediate things we can all do today to make life just a little more bearable for these children.

“We can use our voices, use our political capital and our diplomatic leverage, to push for the evacuation of grievously injured children and their parents to leave Gaza and seek life-saving medical care in East Jerusalem or elsewhere.

“As so many of us head into the celebrations of Christmas and the New Year, surrounded by so much, let’s take a moment to think of these children, who have so little and yet continue to lose more, day by day. Use your power, use your influence, to push for a ceasefire, and for the entry of aid at scale.

“Every day without action steals another day from Gaza’s children. Every delay costs more lives. This war should haunt every one of us. Gaza’s children cannot wait.

Thank you.”

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

Fiona Grahame