🔗 Share this article

Powerful cold-season gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and severe shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Severe Elements

Although a ceasefire has been active since October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient shelter necessary to survive frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the bodies, reported on this week that the dead were a pair of adult females, a girl, and a man.

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

"The world has enabled us to experience loss of life in every possible way," said a family member following the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, 3 members of a single family — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre tall wall collapsed onto their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than five additional people were hurt in the event.

Their relatives on that day started clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of Palestinians reside in makeshift shelters because their homes were reduced to rubble over the course of the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Casualty Figures After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, reports over four hundred and forty people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, said on that day that at least 100 children under the age of 18 – sixty males and 40 girls – had been killed since the truce started because of military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, artillery fire and use of bullets. Those figures, he explained, represented incidents where enough details had been compiled to justify documentation, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured.

"Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "So what the international community now calls calm would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required during the winter months. This marks the third winter 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 took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over 71,400 people have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.