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Powerful cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy shelters housing people uprooted 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 shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Harsh Weather

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

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, reported on this week that the dead include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness loss of life in every possible way," said a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than five additional people were injured in the incident.

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

Aid Distribution and Continuing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as food and sanitation supplies across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians reside in improvised tents because their houses were reduced to rubble during the war. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry maintains detailed fatality data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty males and 40 girls – had been killed after the truce began because of armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to justify documentation, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He added that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed throughout the colder season. It’s the 3rd winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and murdered around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

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