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Strong cold-season winds brought walls down upon fragile shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. These deaths highlights the dangerous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of devastating bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Truce Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, aid groups state that residents broadly lack the sufficient housing necessary to withstand recurring winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, reported on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the local health authority stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold during the night.

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

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least five additional people were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had buried their family and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

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

The majority of the population live in improvised tents since their houses were turned into ruins during the hostilities. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Numbers After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty data that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that no fewer than one hundred children below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 girls – had been lost their lives after the truce started due to armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. Those figures, he explained, reflected incidents where enough details had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls calm would be viewed as a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the conflict between Israel and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over 71,400 people have been fatally injured in the subsequent military campaign.