🔗 Share this article

Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse onto flimsy tents sheltering people displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths underscores the perilous living conditions that continue after over two years of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers No Relief from Harsh Weather

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

Officials at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which received the victims, said on this week that the dead were two women, a young female, and a man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry stated on the same day that a one-year-old boy succumbed of extreme cold during the night.

"International actors has enabled us to witness loss of life in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Tent Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a single household — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall fell on top of their tent in a coastal area of Gaza City. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the event.

Family members on that day began clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Efforts and Continuing Emergency

The UN and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters since their homes were reduced to ruins over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures After the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The ministry maintains detailed casualty data that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 girls – had been lost their lives since the ceasefire began due to military operations, such as drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He noted that many hundreds of minors had been injured.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Third Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms away while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently needed during the colder season. This marks the third cold season after the conflict involving the state and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and murdered approximately 1,200 people and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

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