🔗 Share this article

Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, killing at least 4 individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous living conditions that continue after more than 24 months of devastating bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Relief from Severe Weather

While a truce has been in effect since last fall, aid groups report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient shelter necessary to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, reported on this week that the deceased were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

Separately, the local health authority stated on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has allowed us to experience loss of life in every possible way," stated Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "It’s true the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least five additional people were injured in the event.

Family members on that day began clearing the debris that had buried their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Crisis

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as food and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters because their homes were turned into rubble during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority keeps detailed casualty data that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 females – had been killed after the ceasefire started due to military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and use of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented cases where enough information had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "So what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently required during the winter months. It’s the 3rd cold season since the conflict between the state and the group started on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and murdered approximately twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

The local health authority reports more than 71,400 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.