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Strong winter gusts brought walls down upon fragile shelters housing people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least four individuals. These deaths highlights the dangerous living conditions that continue after over two years of intense airstrikes and severe lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Harsh Elements

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

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

Separately, the local health authority stated on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has allowed us to experience death in all its forms," stated a family member after the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a single family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the event.

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

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of Palestinians live in improvised shelters because their homes were turned into ruins over the course of the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been killed by gunfire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps detailed fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 males and 40 females – had been lost their lives after the truce began because of military operations, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, artillery fire and use of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented cases where enough details had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million people has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms at bay while facing shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently needed throughout the winter months. It’s the third winter since the conflict between the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately twelve hundred individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.