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Strong cold-season winds caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. These deaths underscores the dangerous situation that continue after over two years of intense bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Truce Provides No Respite from Harsh Weather

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

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, reported on this week that the deceased include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

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

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," stated a family member after 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."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a single household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than 5 others were injured in the event.

Their relatives on that day started clearing the rubble that had buried their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, warm covers 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 shelters since their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says more than 440 individuals have been fatally shot by gunfire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority maintains detailed casualty data that are seen as largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire started because of armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. These numbers, he explained, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and storms away while facing shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required during the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the conflict between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and killed around twelve hundred individuals and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.