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Strong cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than four people. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that persist after more than two years of devastating airstrikes and critical shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Elements

Although a truce has been in effect from last fall, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

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

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, 3 members of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least five additional people were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as food and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of the population live in makeshift shelters because their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The authority maintains detailed fatality data that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and 40 girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, represented cases where sufficient information had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and bad weather at bay while enduring lack of assistance and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is badly needed during the winter months. This marks the 3rd cold season after the conflict involving the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than 71,400 people have been killed in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.