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Strong winter gusts brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, killing at least 4 people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that continue after over two years of intense bombardment and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Severe Elements

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

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the victims, said on this week that the deceased include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness loss of life in all its forms," said a family member following the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one family — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall collapsed on top of their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least five additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on that day began removing the debris that had buried their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population live in makeshift tents since their houses were reduced to ruins during the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 440 people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality records that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on that day that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire started 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 details had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while enduring shortages of assistance and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required during the colder season. It’s the third winter since the war between the state and Hamas started on a date in late 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

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