🔗 Share this article

Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto flimsy shelters housing Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 individuals. These deaths underscores the dangerous situation that persist after over 24 months of devastating bombardment and critical shortages of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Severe Weather

Although a truce has been active since October, aid groups state that residents broadly lack the adequate shelter necessary to survive recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead were a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man.

In a separate incident, the local health authority announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of extreme cold during the night.

"The world has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three people of a one household — 72-year-old a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an eight-metre tall wall fell onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had entombed their family and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, tarps, warm covers and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene items throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in makeshift shelters since their homes were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups contend an insufficient amount of building supplies are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says over four hundred and forty people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals since the truce began. The ministry keeps detailed casualty data that are seen as largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on that day that no fewer than 100 minors under the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 girls – had been killed since the ceasefire started due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, artillery fire and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to justify documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He noted that hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have slowed' during the truce, they have not ceased," the spokesperson told reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "So what the world now terms quiet would be viewed as a crisis anywhere else," he said.

Another Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s population of more than two million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms away while enduring shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the winter months. It’s the third cold season since the war involving the state and the group started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.