🔗 Share this article

Powerful cold-season winds brought walls down upon flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 individuals. This tragedy underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Severe Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect from last fall, aid groups report that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the dead include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

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

"The world has enabled us to witness loss of life in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a single family — elderly a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot tall wall fell on top of their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. No fewer than five others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started removing the rubble that had buried their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of Palestinians reside in makeshift shelters since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, reports more than four hundred and forty individuals have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality data that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that at least 100 minors below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire started because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected cases where enough details had been compiled to justify documentation, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and storms away while enduring shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the 3rd winter after the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over 71,400 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.