Winter Weather Systems Take 5 Lives in the Gaza Strip Amid Dire Living Situations in Makeshift Camps.
Strong winter gusts caused walls to collapse upon fragile shelters sheltering people displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 4 people. These deaths underscores the perilous living conditions that persist after over two years of intense bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance.
Truce Provides No Respite from Harsh Elements
While a truce has been active from October, aid groups report that residents do not have the adequate housing required to survive frequent winter storms.
Medical staff at Shifa hospital, which received the bodies, reported on Tuesday that the deceased include two women, a girl, and a male adult.
In a separate incident, the Gaza health ministry announced on Tuesday that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia during the night.
"The world has enabled us to experience death in every possible way," said Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "It’s true the shelling may have paused for now, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of fatality in the world in the Gaza Strip."
Relatives Buried in Tent Collapse
According to Shifa hospital, 3 people of a one family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old relative, and his son's wife — were killed when an 26-foot tall wall collapsed on top of their tent in a area near the sea of the city. At least 5 additional people were hurt in the incident.
Family members on Tuesday began removing the debris that had entombed their family and reconstructing the tent shelters for survivors.
Aid Distribution and Continuing Emergency
The UN and its humanitarian partners were handing out shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and sanitation supplies across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.
Most of Palestinians reside in improvised shelters since their houses were turned into ruins during the war. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza during the ceasefire.
Casualty Figures After the Ceasefire
The Gaza health ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports over 440 people have been killed by gunfire and their remains brought to hospitals after the ceasefire began. The authority maintains detailed fatality records that are considered largely accurate by UN agencies and outside analysts.
A spokesperson for UNICEF, representing the UN children's fund, stated on that day that no fewer than 100 children below eighteen years old – sixty boys and forty girls – had been killed since the ceasefire began because of armed actions, such as unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, air raids, artillery fire and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflected incidents where sufficient details had been compiled to justify recording, but the overall count is believed to be higher. He added that hundreds of children had been injured.
"While 'explosions and shootings have decreased' during the truce, they have not stopped," the spokesperson informed reporters at a UN briefing in the Swiss city by video link from Gaza City. "Therefore what the international community now terms quiet would be viewed as a crisis in any other place," he concluded.
Another Winter of Hardship
Gaza’s population of over two million people has been struggling to fend off the cold weather and storms at bay while enduring shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial transitional shelter, which is urgently needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war involving the state and Hamas began on a date in late 2023, when militants stormed into Israeli territory and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one others into Gaza.
Gaza’s health ministry says more than seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been fatally injured in the subsequent retaliatory offensive.
