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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy shelters housing people uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Provides Little Respite from Harsh Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since October, aid groups state that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing required to survive recurring winter storms.

Officials 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 Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," said a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a single family — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. At least 5 others were injured in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of Palestinians live in improvised tents since their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups contend not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality records that are seen as largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 girls – had been killed after the ceasefire started because of armed actions, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented cases where sufficient information had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now terms calm would be considered a crisis in any other place," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather at bay while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently needed during the winter months. This marks the third winter since the war between the state and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

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