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Strong cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. These deaths underscores the perilous situation that continue after more than 24 months of devastating airstrikes and critical lack of aid.

Truce Offers No Respite from Harsh Weather

While a ceasefire has been active from October, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

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

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold overnight.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "It’s true 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 Shelter Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a one household — elderly a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the event.

Family members on Tuesday began removing the debris that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as food and hygiene items across Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in improvised tents because their homes were reduced to ruins during the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Numbers Since the Truce

Local health authorities, part of the administration, says more than 440 individuals have been killed by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry keeps comprehensive casualty data that are seen as 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 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty males and forty girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began because of armed actions, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. These numbers, he said, represented incidents where enough details had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have slowed' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder informed journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now calls quiet would be considered a crisis in any other place," he said.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently needed during the winter months. It’s the third cold season after the war between Israel and the group began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

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