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Powerful cold-season winds brought walls down onto fragile tents housing Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing at least four people. This tragedy underscores the perilous situation that continue after more than two years of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Truce Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements

Although a truce has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that residents do not have the adequate shelter necessary to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, said on this week that the dead were a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the local health authority announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to witness death in all its forms," stated a family member after the burial. "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."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, 3 members of a one household — elderly a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the event.

Family members on that day started removing the rubble that had buried their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population live in makeshift tents since their houses were turned into rubble during the war. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Figures Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, says more than four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The authority maintains comprehensive casualty records that are considered largely accurate by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty males and forty girls – had been lost their lives since the truce started because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and employment of live ammunition. These numbers, he said, represented cases where enough information had been compiled to justify recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and storms at bay while facing lack of assistance and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is badly required during the colder season. It’s the 3rd cold season after the conflict between the state and the group began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately twelve hundred people and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.