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Powerful winter gusts brought walls down upon flimsy shelters sheltering people displaced by conflict in Gaza, killing no fewer than four people. This tragedy underscores the perilous situation that persist after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical lack of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Relief from Severe Weather

While a ceasefire has been in effect from October, aid groups state that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the dead were a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

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

"The world has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their dwelling in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least 5 others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday began removing the debris that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Distribution and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as food and hygiene items across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

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

Fatality Figures After the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says over four hundred and forty individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains detailed fatality data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire began because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient details had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'bombings and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now calls quiet would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. This marks the third winter since the conflict involving the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.