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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. This tragedy underscores the perilous situation that continue after over 24 months of intense bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Harsh Weather

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since last fall, aid groups report that residents broadly lack the sufficient shelter required to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, reported on this week that the deceased were two women, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the local health authority announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold overnight.

"The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms," stated a family member after the burial. "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."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the event.

Family members on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift shelters because their homes were turned into rubble over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 440 people have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty females – had been lost their lives since the truce started due to armed actions, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' under the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing shortages of assistance and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently needed throughout the colder season. This marks the third winter after the conflict between the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and killed approximately 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

The local health authority reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.