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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down upon flimsy tents housing people uprooted by conflict in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Severe Elements

Although a truce has been active from October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

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

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 allowed us to witness death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started 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 aid organization allies were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters since their homes were turned into rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, reports more than 440 individuals have been fatally shot by gunfire and their remains taken to hospitals after the truce began. The ministry keeps detailed fatality data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 males and 40 girls – had been killed since the ceasefire started because of armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of live ammunition. These numbers, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient information had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms at bay while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the 3rd winter since the war between Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and murdered around twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than 71,400 people have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.