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Powerful winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 people. These deaths underscores the dangerous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been in effect since October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians broadly lack the sufficient housing required to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the victims, said on this week that the dead were two women, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on that day began removing the rubble that had entombed their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in improvised shelters because their homes were reduced to rubble over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than four hundred and forty people have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The authority keeps comprehensive casualty records that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to armed actions, including drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented cases where enough information had been gathered to justify documentation, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have decreased' under the truce, they have not ceased," Elder informed journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "So what the world now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million individuals has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and storms away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed throughout the winter months. It’s the third cold season since the war between the state and the group began on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.