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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile shelters housing Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four people. These deaths highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Truce Offers No Relief from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been in effect since last fall, aid groups state that residents broadly lack the sufficient shelter required to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, said on this week that the dead were two women, a young female, and a male adult.

Separately, the local health authority announced on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," said a family member following the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were injured in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of the population reside in improvised tents since their houses were turned into rubble during the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Figures Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry keeps detailed fatality records that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 girls – had been lost their lives since the truce started due to military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have slowed' during the truce, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms at bay while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. This marks the third winter since the conflict between Israel and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.