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Strong cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, killing no fewer than four individuals. These deaths underscores the dangerous situation that continue after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and critical shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Weather

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, said on Tuesday that the deceased include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold during the night.

"The world has enabled us to experience loss of life in all its forms," said a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least five additional people were hurt in the incident.

Family members on that day started clearing the debris that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift tents because their houses were turned into ruins during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps comprehensive casualty records that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the truce began because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient details had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million individuals has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the winter months. It’s the third cold season after the conflict involving the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and murdered around 1,200 people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

The local health authority says over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.