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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents sheltering people uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than four people. This tragedy underscores the perilous situation that persist after more than two years of intense bombardment and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Provides No Relief from Severe Elements

While a ceasefire has been in effect since October, aid groups state that Palestinians do not have the sufficient shelter required to survive recurring cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on Tuesday that the deceased include two women, a young female, and a male adult.

Separately, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said a family member following the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least five others were injured in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had entombed their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, stated 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 say not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 individuals have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on that day that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire began due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he explained, reflected cases where enough details had been gathered to justify documentation, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' under the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million individuals has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and bad weather at bay while facing lack of assistance and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the colder season. This marks the third cold season since the war between Israel and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked Israeli territory and killed approximately 1,200 people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.