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Strong cold-season winds caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents housing Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, killing at least 4 people. These deaths underscores the perilous situation that continue after over two years of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Weather

While a truce has been active from October, humanitarian organizations report that residents do not have the sufficient housing required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 members of a single family — elderly a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell onto their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than five others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says over 440 individuals have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps comprehensive casualty data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 males and forty females – had been lost their lives after the truce started because of armed actions, including drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected cases where enough details had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while enduring shortages of assistance and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is badly required throughout the winter months. It’s the 3rd cold season since the conflict between Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.