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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the dangerous situation that continue after over two years of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Truce Offers Little Respite from Harsh Elements

Although a ceasefire has been active since October, aid groups report that residents do not have the sufficient housing necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, reported on this week that the deceased were two women, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of extreme cold during the night.

"The world has enabled us to experience death in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda following 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 Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a single family — elderly a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. At least 5 others were injured in the incident.

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

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in makeshift tents since their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says over 440 people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce began. The authority maintains detailed casualty data that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and forty females – had been lost their lives since the truce started due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he explained, reflected incidents where enough details had been compiled to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the world now calls quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. This marks the third cold season after the war between the state and the group began on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.