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Powerful winter winds caused walls to collapse upon flimsy tents sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing at least 4 individuals. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that persist after more than two years of devastating airstrikes and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Severe Elements

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians broadly lack the sufficient housing necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, said on this week that the deceased were two women, a girl, and a man.

In a separate incident, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of extreme cold during the night.

"The world has enabled us to witness death in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, 3 members of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall collapsed onto their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on that day started removing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in makeshift tents since their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The authority maintains detailed casualty data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors under the age of 18 – 60 males and forty females – had been lost their lives after the truce began because of military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, reflected cases where enough information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and bad weather at bay while enduring shortages of assistance and a lack of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed throughout the winter months. It’s the 3rd winter since the conflict involving the state and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports over 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.