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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down onto flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Weather

While a ceasefire has been active since October, humanitarian organizations report that residents do not have the sufficient housing necessary to survive recurring winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the victims, reported on this week that the dead include two women, a young female, and a man.

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

"The world has allowed us to witness loss of life in all its forms," said a family member after the burial. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on that day began clearing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Crisis

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

The majority of Palestinians live in improvised tents since their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred minors under the age of 18 – sixty males and forty girls – had been killed since the truce began due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have slowed' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls quiet would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. This marks the third cold season after the war involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked Israeli territory and murdered around twelve hundred individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.