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Strong cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. These deaths highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over two years of intense bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Provides Little Respite from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on this week that the dead include a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold overnight.

"The world has enabled us to witness death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least five others were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as food and sanitation items across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift shelters because their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Numbers Since the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed since the truce started due to armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to justify documentation, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He added that hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under 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 international community now terms quiet would be considered a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter after the conflict involving the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked Israeli territory and murdered approximately twelve hundred individuals and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.