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Strong winter winds caused walls to collapse onto fragile shelters sheltering Palestinians uprooted by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 people. This tragedy underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after more than two years of devastating bombardment and critical lack of aid.

Ceasefire Offers Little Relief from Harsh Elements

While a truce has been in effect from last fall, aid groups state that residents do not have the adequate housing required to survive frequent winter storms.

Officials at Shifa hospital, which took in the victims, reported on Tuesday that the dead were two women, a girl, 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 enabled us to experience death in all its forms," said Bassel Hamouda after the burial. "While it is correct the shelling may have temporarily stopped, but we have seen all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse

According to the medical center, three members of a single household — elderly a man, his teenage granddaughter, 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. No fewer than five others were hurt in the incident.

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

Humanitarian Efforts and Ongoing Crisis

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

Most of the population live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to ruins during the hostilities. Humanitarian organizations say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza under the ceasefire.

Casualty Figures Since the Truce

The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 440 individuals have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the truce began. The authority keeps comprehensive casualty records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and independent experts.

James Elder, representing the UN children’s agency Unicef, stated on Tuesday that at least one hundred minors under the age of 18 – 60 males and forty girls – had been killed after the ceasefire began because of military operations, including drone strikes, air raids, tank shelling and employment of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, represented cases where enough information had been compiled to justify documentation, but the overall count is expected to be greater. He noted that many hundreds of children had been injured.

"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' under the ceasefire, they have not ceased," the spokesperson informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video link from the Strip. "Therefore what the international community now terms calm would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.

Another Winter of Hardship

Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring lack of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently needed during the colder season. It’s the third cold season after the conflict involving the state and the group began on 7 October 2023, when militants attacked southern Israel and murdered around twelve hundred individuals and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

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