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Strong winter winds brought walls down upon fragile shelters housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, killing at least four people. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical shortages of aid.

Truce Provides Little Relief from Severe Weather

While a ceasefire has been in effect since last fall, aid groups state that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter required to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

According to the medical center, three people of a single family — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least five additional people were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians live in improvised tents because their houses were reduced to ruins during the hostilities. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, part of the administration, reports more than 440 people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals since the truce began. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least 100 minors under the age of 18 – sixty boys and forty girls – had been killed after the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented cases where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not ceased," Elder told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "So what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than two million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the 3rd cold season after the war involving Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.