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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto flimsy shelters housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that persist after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Harsh Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect from October, aid groups report that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter necessary to survive recurring winter storms.

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

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," stated a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, three members of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than five others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on that day began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift tents since their houses were reduced to rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, reports more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and forty females – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire started because of military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented cases where enough details had been gathered to justify documentation, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'bombings and gunfire have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now calls quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather at bay while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is badly needed during the colder season. This marks the 3rd cold season after the conflict between the state and the group started on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

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