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Powerful cold-season winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile tents sheltering Palestinians uprooted by war in Gaza, killing at least 4 individuals. This tragedy underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after more than two years of intense airstrikes and critical shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Offers No Respite from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been in effect from October, aid groups report that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter required 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 a pair of adult females, a girl, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia overnight.

"The world has enabled us to experience loss of life in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "While it is correct the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a one family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot high wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of the city. No fewer than 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday started clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.

Aid Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as food and sanitation items throughout Gaza, stated the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

The majority of the population reside in makeshift tents because their houses were turned into ruins over the course of the war. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Fatality Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people have been fatally shot by gunfire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The authority maintains comprehensive fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and 40 girls – had been killed since the ceasefire began because of armed actions, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of bullets. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient information had been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and shootings have slowed' under the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson told journalists at a press conference in the Swiss city by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the world now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he said.

Another Cold Season of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of over two million individuals has been fighting to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of assistance and a absence of sturdier transitional shelter, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter after the war involving the state and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

The local health authority says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.