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Powerful winter winds caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths highlights the perilous situation that persist after over two years of devastating bombardment and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Severe Weather

Although a truce has been active from October, humanitarian organizations state that residents broadly lack the adequate shelter required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, reported on this week that the dead include two women, a young female, and a man.

In a separate incident, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said a family member following the burial. "It’s true the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three people of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, 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 five additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had entombed their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of Palestinians live in improvised tents since their houses were turned into rubble during the war. Aid groups contend not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps detailed fatality records that are considered generally reliable 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 one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed after the truce began due to armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of live ammunition. These numbers, he said, reflected incidents where enough information had been gathered to justify recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the world now terms calm would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is badly required during the colder season. This marks the third winter since the conflict involving the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and murdered around 1,200 people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than 71,400 people have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.