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Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing people displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that continue after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical shortages of aid.

Truce Provides Little Relief from Harsh Elements

While a ceasefire has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that residents broadly lack the sufficient shelter required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the deceased were two women, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has allowed us to witness loss of life in every possible way," said a family member after the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population reside in improvised shelters because their houses were turned into rubble over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups contend not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says more than four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – sixty boys and forty girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began due to armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented cases where sufficient information had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now calls calm would be viewed as a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over two million individuals has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the colder season. This marks the third winter after the war between Israel and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

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