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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down onto fragile shelters housing people displaced by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy underscores the dangerous situation that persist after more than two years of devastating airstrikes and critical lack of aid.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been in effect from last fall, humanitarian organizations state that residents do not have the sufficient shelter required to withstand recurring winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, reported on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a young female, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold during the night.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," said a family member after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen 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 single household — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least 5 others were hurt in the incident.

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

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of Palestinians live in improvised tents because their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says more than 440 individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps detailed casualty data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 girls – had been killed since the ceasefire started because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he explained, represented cases where enough details had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million individuals has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required during the colder season. It’s the third winter since the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

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