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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, killing no fewer than four people. This tragedy underscores the dangerous situation that persist after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers Little Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect from last fall, aid groups report that residents do not have the adequate housing necessary to withstand recurring winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, said on Tuesday that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the local health authority announced on the same day 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 following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three people of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall collapsed onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least 5 additional people were injured in the event.

Family members on that day started clearing the debris that had entombed their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters because their houses were reduced to ruins during the war. Humanitarian organizations say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 people have been killed by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 girls – had been killed since the truce started because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. Those figures, he explained, represented cases where enough details had been gathered to justify recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder informed reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required throughout the colder season. This marks the 3rd cold season after the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says over 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.