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Strong winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon flimsy shelters housing people uprooted by war in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. This tragedy highlights the dangerous situation that continue after more than two years of devastating airstrikes and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect from last fall, aid groups state that Palestinians do not have the adequate housing necessary to survive frequent cold-weather events.

Medical staff at Gaza City's largest medical facility, which took in the bodies, said on Tuesday that the dead include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a male adult.

In a separate incident, the local health authority stated on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of hypothermia overnight.

"International actors has enabled us to witness death in every possible way," stated a family member after the funeral. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen every conceivable cause of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Crushed in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, 3 people of a single family — elderly a man, his teenage relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed onto their tent in a area near the sea of Gaza City. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.

Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the tent shelters for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, plastic sheeting, warm covers and clothes as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies throughout Gaza, stated the relevant UN coordination body.

The majority of the population reside in makeshift tents because their houses were turned into rubble over the course of the war. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the truce.

Fatality Figures Since the Truce

Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says more than four hundred and forty individuals have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The ministry keeps detailed casualty records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.

A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, said on Tuesday that at least 100 minors under the age of 18 – sixty boys and 40 females – had been lost their lives after the ceasefire began due to military operations, including unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, tank shelling 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 higher. He added that hundreds of children had been wounded.

"While 'explosions and gunfire have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "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 2 million individuals has been fighting to fend off the cold weather and storms away while facing lack of humanitarian aid and a lack of sturdier temporary housing, which is badly required throughout the winter months. This marks the third winter since the conflict between the state and the group started on a date in late 2023, when fighters stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and took hostage two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry reports over 71,400 Palestinians have been fatally injured in Israel’s military campaign.