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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto fragile shelters sheltering people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous situation that persist after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Relief from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, humanitarian organizations report that residents do not have the sufficient housing necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, said on Tuesday that the deceased include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has allowed us to witness loss of life in every possible way," stated a family member following the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a single household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. At least 5 others were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started removing the rubble that had entombed their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the hostilities. Aid groups contend not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry keeps detailed fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 females – had been lost their lives since the truce began because of military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, reflected cases where sufficient details had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million individuals has been struggling to keep the cold weather and bad weather at bay while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required during the colder season. This marks the 3rd cold season since the war between the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.