🔗 Share this article

Strong winter gusts brought walls down onto fragile tents sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing at least 4 individuals. This tragedy highlights the dangerous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of devastating bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Truce Offers Little Relief from Severe Elements

Although a ceasefire has been in effect from last fall, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians broadly lack the sufficient housing necessary to withstand recurring cold-weather events.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, said on this week that the dead include two women, a young female, and a male adult.

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

"International actors has allowed us to experience loss of life in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, three members of a one family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his son's wife — were fatally injured when an 26-foot tall wall fell onto their dwelling in a area near the sea of Gaza City. No fewer than 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on that day began clearing the debris that had buried their family and rebuilding the tent shelters for those who remained.

Humanitarian Efforts and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Most of the population reside in makeshift shelters because their houses were turned into ruins during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the truce began. The authority keeps comprehensive casualty data that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on that day that at least 100 minors below eighteen years old – 60 males and forty girls – had been lost their lives since the truce started due to armed actions, such as drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he explained, represented cases where enough information had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is expected to be greater. He added that many hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he said.

Another Winter of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of more than two million individuals has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms away while enduring shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the conflict involving Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.