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Strong winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents sheltering people uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and critical shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers No Respite from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing necessary to withstand recurring winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead were two women, a young female, and a man.

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

"The world has enabled us to witness loss of life in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a single family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least five others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on that day began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as food and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality records that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that at least 100 minors under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 girls – had been killed since the truce started due to armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, represented cases where enough information had been gathered to justify documentation, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' during the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the world now calls quiet would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms away while facing lack of assistance and a lack of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly needed during the colder season. This marks the 3rd cold season since the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.