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Powerful cold-season winds brought walls down onto flimsy tents housing Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths underscores the dangerous situation that continue after more than two years of devastating bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been active since October, aid groups state that residents do not have the sufficient housing required to withstand frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the deceased were two women, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda following the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, three members of a one household — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre high wall collapsed on top of their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least five others were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on that day began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as food and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians live in makeshift shelters because their houses were reduced to ruins during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals after the ceasefire went into effect. The authority keeps comprehensive fatality records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children below eighteen years old – 60 males and forty females – had been killed since the ceasefire began due to military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he explained, reflected cases where enough details had been compiled to justify documentation, 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 ceasefire, they have not ceased," Elder told journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the world now terms quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and bad weather away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the third cold season after the conflict involving the state and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked Israeli territory and murdered around twelve hundred individuals and took hostage 251 others into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.