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Powerful winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths highlights the dangerous living conditions that continue after more than 24 months of devastating bombardment and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the bodies, said on this week that the deceased include two women, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness loss of life in every possible way," stated a family member following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three people of a single household — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started clearing the rubble that had entombed their family and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of the population live in improvised shelters because their homes were turned into rubble over the course of the war. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 people have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps detailed casualty data that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 females – had been lost their lives since the truce started because of military operations, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, reflected cases where sufficient details had been gathered to warrant recording, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not stopped," Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of over 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and bad weather at bay while facing shortages of assistance and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. This marks the third cold season since the conflict between Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked Israeli territory and killed around twelve hundred individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

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