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Powerful cold-season winds brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing people displaced by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous situation that persist after more than two years of devastating airstrikes and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Harsh Weather

Although a truce has been active from last fall, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter necessary to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, reported on this week that the dead were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold during the night.

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

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least five additional people were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday started removing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

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

Most of the population reside in improvised tents since their houses were reduced to rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers After the Truce

Local health authorities, part of the administration, reports over four hundred and forty individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps detailed casualty data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed since the truce started because of armed actions, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected cases where enough details had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather at bay while enduring lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the winter months. This marks the 3rd winter after the war involving the state and the group began on a date in late 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and murdered approximately twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than 71,400 people have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.