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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four people. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over two years of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, humanitarian organizations report that residents do not have the sufficient shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, reported on this week that the dead include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

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

"International actors has enabled us to experience loss of life 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 every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a one family — elderly a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall collapsed on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. At least five others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on that day started clearing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in improvised shelters because their homes were reduced to ruins during the war. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 440 people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the truce began. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on that day that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – sixty boys and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to armed actions, including drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, reflected incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to justify documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls quiet would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been struggling to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the 3rd cold season since the war between Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked Israeli territory and murdered approximately twelve hundred individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.