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Powerful cold-season gusts brought walls down upon flimsy shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over two years of devastating bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Provides Little Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect from October, aid groups report that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

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

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than five additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday started clearing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items across Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in improvised tents since their homes were reduced to ruins during the hostilities. Aid groups contend not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Casualty Numbers Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 people have been killed by gunfire and their remains taken to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority maintains detailed fatality data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on that day that at least one hundred minors under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 females – had been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where enough details had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now calls calm would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the conflict involving the state and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered around 1,200 individuals and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

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