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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down onto flimsy shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after more than two years of intense airstrikes and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since last fall, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient shelter required to survive frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, reported on this week that the deceased were two women, a girl, and a man.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness loss of life in every possible way," stated a family member after the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, three members of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least five others were injured in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started removing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as food and hygiene items across Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in improvised tents because their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports over four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality records that are seen as largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on that day that at least one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty males and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the truce started due to armed actions, such as drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented cases where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He noted that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' during the truce, they have not ceased," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather at bay while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed throughout the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war involving the state and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and killed around 1,200 individuals and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than 71,400 people have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.