🔗 Share this article

Powerful cold-season gusts brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of devastating airstrikes and critical shortages of aid.

Truce Offers No Respite from Severe Elements

Although a truce has been active since last fall, aid groups state that residents do not have the adequate shelter necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

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

"International actors has allowed us to witness loss of life in every possible way," said a family member after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, three members of a single family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. At least five additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as food and sanitation items throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of the population live in makeshift shelters since their homes were turned into rubble during the war. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough building supplies are entering Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire started due to armed actions, such as drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather at bay while facing lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the colder season. This marks the 3rd winter after the war involving the state and the group began on a date in late 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

The local health authority says over 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.