🔗 Share this article

Powerful winter winds caused walls to collapse upon flimsy tents sheltering Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 individuals. These deaths highlights the perilous situation that persist after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Elements

Although a ceasefire has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that Palestinians do not have the sufficient shelter required to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a young female, and a male adult.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a single household — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least five additional people were injured in the incident.

Their relatives on that day began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in makeshift shelters because their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, reports over four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the truce began. The authority keeps comprehensive fatality data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors below eighteen years old – sixty boys and forty girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where enough information had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'bombings and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder informed reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the freezing temperatures and storms at bay while enduring shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly required throughout the colder season. It’s the 3rd winter after the conflict between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in the subsequent military campaign.