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Strong cold-season winds caused walls to collapse upon fragile shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. This tragedy underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after more than two years of intense bombardment and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Provides Little Respite from Severe Elements

While a ceasefire has been active from October, humanitarian organizations report that residents broadly lack the adequate shelter required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in 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 stated on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 members of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot tall wall fell onto their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the event.

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

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population reside in improvised tents because their houses were reduced to rubble during the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, part of the administration, says more than 440 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on that day that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – 60 boys and forty girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, reflected incidents where enough information had been compiled to justify recording, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He added that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed throughout the colder season. It’s the third winter since the war involving Israel and the group began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says over 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.