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Strong winter winds brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing people displaced by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths highlights the dangerous situation that persist after over 24 months of intense bombardment and critical shortages of aid.

Truce Provides No Relief from Harsh Elements

While a ceasefire has been in effect since last fall, aid groups state that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate shelter required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on Tuesday that the dead include two women, a young female, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the local health authority announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness death in all its forms," said a family member following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three people of a one family — elderly a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than five others were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on that day began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in makeshift shelters since their houses were reduced to rubble over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups contend not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the truce began. The authority maintains detailed fatality data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on that day that no fewer than 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty males and 40 girls – had been lost their lives after the truce began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' during the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been struggling to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the conflict involving Israel and the group began on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

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