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Strong cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents sheltering people displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least 4 people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that continue after more than 24 months of devastating airstrikes and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Respite from Severe Elements

While a ceasefire has been active since last fall, humanitarian organizations state that residents broadly lack the sufficient shelter required to survive recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, said on this week that the dead include two women, a young female, and a man.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of extreme cold overnight.

"International actors has allowed us to witness death in all its forms," stated a family member following the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

According to Shifa hospital, 3 members of a single family — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. At least five others were injured in the event.

Family members on that day began removing the debris that had entombed their family and reconstructing the temporary homes for survivors.

Aid Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as food and sanitation items across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of Palestinians live in makeshift shelters since their houses were turned into rubble over the course of the war. Aid groups contend not enough shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Numbers Since the Ceasefire

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, reports over 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps detailed fatality data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on that day that no fewer than 100 minors below eighteen years old – sixty boys and 40 females – had been killed after the ceasefire started due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to justify documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "So what the world now calls calm would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than two million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while enduring lack of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly required during the colder season. This marks the 3rd cold season since the war between the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when fighters attacked southern Israel and killed around twelve hundred individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over 71,400 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.