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Strong winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than four people. These deaths underscores the perilous situation that persist after more than two years of intense airstrikes and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers No Relief from Severe Elements

While a truce has been in effect since October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing necessary to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on Tuesday that the deceased include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to experience death in every possible way," said a family member after the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than five additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had buried their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as food and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of Palestinians reside in improvised tents because their homes were reduced to rubble over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The ministry maintains detailed fatality data that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on that day that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty males and 40 females – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire started because of military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. These numbers, he explained, reflected incidents where enough details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s population of over 2 million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the third cold season after the war between the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and killed around 1,200 people and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in the subsequent military campaign.