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Powerful cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile tents housing Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 people. These deaths underscores the dangerous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of devastating bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Severe Weather

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead include two women, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," said a family member after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a single household — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall collapsed onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the incident.

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

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as food and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population reside in improvised shelters because their houses were turned into ruins during the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty records that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty girls – had been killed after the truce started because of armed actions, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and shootings have decreased' under the truce, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over 2 million individuals has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. This marks the 3rd winter since the war involving Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.