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Powerful winter winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. These deaths underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after more than 24 months of devastating airstrikes and critical lack of aid.

Truce Provides No Relief from Severe Weather

Although a truce has been in effect from last fall, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, said on this week that the dead include a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell onto their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than five additional people were injured in the event.

Family members on that day started clearing the rubble that had entombed their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of the population live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says over 440 individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry maintains comprehensive fatality data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty females – had been killed since the truce began because of armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, reflected incidents where enough information had been compiled to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while facing lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently required throughout the winter months. It’s the 3rd winter after the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred people and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.