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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down upon flimsy tents housing people displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been active since October, aid groups state that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing necessary to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, said on this week that the deceased include two women, a young female, and a male adult.

Separately, the local health authority stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has enabled us to witness death in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to the medical center, 3 members of a one family — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed on top of their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least 5 additional people were injured in the incident.

Family members on that day began removing the debris that had buried their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in improvised tents because their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps detailed casualty data that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on that day that no fewer than one hundred minors under the age of 18 – 60 boys and forty females – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire started due to armed actions, such as drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is badly required throughout the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the war between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and murdered around 1,200 people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says over 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.