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Powerful cold-season gusts brought walls down onto flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four individuals. These deaths underscores the perilous situation that persist after more than 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Harsh Elements

While a ceasefire has been active from last fall, aid groups state that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing required to survive frequent winter storms.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the victims, said on Tuesday that the deceased were two women, a young female, and a man.

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

"The world has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a single family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall fell on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. At least five additional people were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday started removing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in improvised shelters because their houses were reduced to ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures Since the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says over 440 individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The authority keeps comprehensive casualty data that are seen as largely accurate by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least 100 minors below eighteen years old – sixty males and 40 females – had been killed since the truce began because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he explained, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been gathered to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not stopped," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over 2 million people has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and storms at bay while enduring lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the 3rd winter since the conflict involving the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports over 71,400 people have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.