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Strong cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy tents housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the dangerous living conditions that persist after more than two years of devastating bombardment and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Relief from Harsh Weather

While a ceasefire has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing necessary to survive recurring cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, said on Tuesday that the deceased include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has enabled us to witness death in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a one family — elderly a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall fell onto their dwelling in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least 5 others were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on that day began clearing the rubble that had buried their family and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population reside in makeshift shelters because their homes were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says over 440 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty females – had been killed since the ceasefire began because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented cases where enough details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the war involving Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.