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Powerful winter winds brought walls down onto flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Severe Weather

While a ceasefire has been active since last fall, aid groups report that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on this week that the dead were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three people of a one family — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started removing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in makeshift tents because their homes were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps detailed fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now terms quiet would be considered a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than two million individuals has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the winter months. This marks the third winter after the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

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