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Powerful cold-season gusts brought walls down onto fragile shelters housing people displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy underscores the dangerous situation that persist after over 24 months of intense bombardment and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Severe Elements

While a ceasefire has been active from last fall, aid groups state that residents do not have the adequate housing required to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the dead were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

In a separate incident, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has enabled us to experience death in every possible way," said a family member after the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall fell onto their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on that day started removing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as food and hygiene items throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population live in improvised shelters since their homes were turned into rubble during the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, part of the Hamas-run government, says over 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The authority keeps detailed fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors under the age of 18 – 60 boys and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire started due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not ceased," Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million individuals has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while facing lack of assistance and a lack of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly required during the colder season. This marks the third winter since the war involving Israel and the group started on a date in late 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred individuals and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.