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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents sheltering people uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. These deaths underscores the perilous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and critical shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers No Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, aid groups state that residents broadly lack the adequate housing necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the bodies, 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 Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has enabled us to witness loss of life in every possible way," stated a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three people of a single family — elderly a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 additional people were injured in the event.

Family members on Tuesday started clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets 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 shelters because their homes were turned into ruins over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Numbers Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says over four hundred and forty people have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on that day that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 males and forty females – had been lost their lives since the ceasefire began because of military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' under the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls quiet would be considered a crisis in any other place," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been struggling to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required during the winter months. It’s the third winter after the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and killed around 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.