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Strong winter winds brought walls down onto fragile tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that persist after more than two years of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Provides No Respite from Severe Weather

While a ceasefire has been in effect from last fall, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians broadly lack the sufficient housing necessary to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead include two women, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in every possible way," stated a family member after the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were injured in the incident.

Family members on that day began removing the debris that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as food and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, reports over 440 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 males and forty girls – had been killed since the ceasefire started due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, reflected cases where sufficient details had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'bombings and shootings have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder told reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly required throughout the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the war between Israel and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.