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Powerful cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile tents sheltering people uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four people. These deaths highlights the perilous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Truce Provides No Relief from Harsh Weather

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since October, aid groups report that Palestinians broadly lack the adequate housing necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

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

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," said a family member after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, three members of a single family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell onto their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were injured in the event.

Their relatives on that day started removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Distribution and Ongoing Emergency

The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of Palestinians live in improvised tents because their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, reports more than four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty data that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – 60 males and forty females – had been killed since the ceasefire started because of military operations, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where enough details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now terms calm would be considered a catastrophe anywhere else," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

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 more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the winter months. It’s the third cold season since the war between the state and the group started on a date in late 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people and took hostage 251 more into Gaza.

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