🔗 Share this article

Strong winter winds brought walls down onto flimsy shelters housing people uprooted by conflict in Gaza, killing at least four individuals. This tragedy highlights the perilous situation that persist after over 24 months of intense airstrikes and severe shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Harsh Elements

While a ceasefire has been in effect from October, humanitarian organizations report that residents do not have the adequate shelter required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on this week that the deceased include two women, a young female, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness death in all its forms," said a family member after the burial. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a single family — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of the city. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started clearing the rubble that had entombed their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing shelter kits, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as food and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in improvised shelters because their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says over four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The authority maintains detailed casualty data that are considered generally reliable by international bodies and outside analysts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 girls – had been lost their lives since the ceasefire began because of military operations, such as drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of bullets. Those figures, he explained, reflected cases where enough information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have slowed' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video from the Strip. "So what the international community now terms calm would be viewed as a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently needed throughout the colder season. It’s the 3rd cold season since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and killed around twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than 71,400 people have been killed in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.