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Strong cold-season gusts brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over two years of intense bombardment and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Provides Little Relief from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on this week that the dead include a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

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

"The world has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three people of a one family — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall fell onto their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on that day began clearing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in improvised tents because their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The authority keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began due to armed actions, including drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, reflected cases where enough details had been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now calls quiet would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of over two million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required throughout the colder season. It’s the 3rd winter since the war between the state and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and murdered approximately 1,200 people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.