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Strong cold-season gusts brought walls down upon fragile shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after over two years of intense bombardment and critical shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers No Respite from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been active since last fall, aid groups state that residents do not have the adequate shelter necessary to survive recurring winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, reported on this week that the dead were two women, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has enabled us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a single household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, 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 event.

Family members on that day started removing the debris that had buried their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians live in makeshift tents because their houses were reduced to rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Numbers After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says more than 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – 60 males and forty females – had been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where enough details had been compiled to justify documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," Elder informed reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed throughout the winter months. It’s the third cold season after the conflict between Israel and the group began on a date in late 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.