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Powerful cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents sheltering people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. These deaths highlights the dangerous living conditions that persist after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Offers Little Respite from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been active since last fall, aid groups report that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on Tuesday that the dead were two women, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold during the night.

"International actors has allowed us to experience death in every possible way," stated a family member following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three members of a one family — elderly a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started clearing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters since their houses were reduced to rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 individuals have been killed by gunfire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The authority maintains detailed fatality records that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 boys and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to justify recording, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now calls quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million individuals has been struggling to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the 3rd cold season after the war involving the state and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed around 1,200 individuals and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.