🔗 Share this article

Strong winter gusts brought walls down onto fragile shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than four individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Severe Weather

While a truce has been in effect since October, humanitarian organizations state that residents do not have the sufficient housing necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on Tuesday that the dead include a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three people of a one household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than five additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on that day began removing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as food and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of Palestinians reside in improvised tents because their homes were turned into rubble over the course of the war. Aid groups contend not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that no fewer than 100 children below eighteen years old – 60 males and 40 females – had been killed since the ceasefire began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. These numbers, he said, represented cases where sufficient details had been compiled to justify recording, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of children had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Third Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than two million people has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms at bay while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required throughout the winter months. This marks the 3rd cold season after the war between Israel and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately twelve hundred people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.