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Powerful winter winds brought walls down upon flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the perilous situation that continue after over 24 months of intense bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Offers No Relief from Harsh Weather

While a ceasefire has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations state that residents broadly lack the sufficient shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, said on this week that the dead include two women, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the local health authority announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia during the night.

"The world has allowed us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "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 Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall collapsed onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least five others were hurt in the incident.

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

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out shelter kits, tarps, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in makeshift tents because their houses were reduced to ruins during the war. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the truce began. The ministry keeps comprehensive fatality records that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that at least one hundred children below eighteen years old – sixty males and forty females – had been killed after the ceasefire started because of military operations, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the world now terms quiet would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of over two million people has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the third winter after the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and killed approximately 1,200 people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

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