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Strong cold-season winds caused walls to collapse upon fragile tents housing people uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 people. This tragedy underscores the dangerous living conditions that continue after over 24 months of intense bombardment and severe lack of aid.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Weather

While a truce has been active since October, humanitarian organizations state that residents do not have the sufficient shelter required to withstand frequent winter storms.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on this week that the deceased include 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 during the night.

"The world has enabled us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda following the burial. "It’s true the bombing may have paused for now, but we have seen every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Tent Collapse

As per Shifa hospital, 3 members of a single family — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall fell onto their tent in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than 5 others were hurt in the incident.

Family members on that day started clearing the debris that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors.

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Emergency

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were handing out tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation items throughout Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population live in improvised shelters since their homes were turned into rubble over the course of the hostilities. Aid groups say not enough building supplies are reaching Gaza during the ceasefire.

Fatality Numbers After the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the administration, reports over 440 people have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The authority keeps detailed fatality data that are considered generally reliable by UN agencies and outside analysts.

James Elder, representing the UN children's fund, stated on Tuesday that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 boys and forty girls – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he said, represented incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to warrant documentation, but the total toll is believed to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"Although 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' during the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "So what the international community now calls quiet would be viewed as a catastrophe anywhere else," he said.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been fighting to keep the cold weather and bad weather away while enduring lack of assistance and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the colder season. It’s the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately twelve hundred people and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.