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Powerful winter winds brought walls down upon fragile shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe lack of aid.

Truce Offers Little Respite from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations report that residents broadly lack the adequate housing required to survive frequent cold-weather events.

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

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

"International actors has enabled us to experience death in all its forms," stated a family member after the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a single household — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started removing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as food and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble over the course of the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The authority maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 males and 40 females – had been killed since the truce began because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected cases where sufficient details had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million individuals has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required during the winter months. It’s the 3rd winter after the conflict between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and murdered approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.