🔗 Share this article Winter Storms Take Five Victims in the Gaza Strip Amidst Dire Conditions in Makeshift Shelters. Strong cold-season gusts brought walls down upon flimsy shelters sheltering Palestinians displaced by conflict in Gaza, claiming the lives of no fewer than 4 people. These deaths underscores the dangerous living conditions that persist after more than 24 months of intense bombardment and critical lack of humanitarian assistance. Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Severe Weather Although a truce has been active from October, humanitarian organizations report that Palestinians do not have the adequate shelter necessary to withstand recurring winter storms. Officials at Shifa hospital, which received the victims, reported on this week that the dead include a pair of adult females, a young female, and a man. Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant succumbed of hypothermia overnight. "International actors has enabled us to experience death in all its forms," stated Bassel Hamouda after the funeral. "It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip." Relatives Buried in Shelter Collapse As per Shifa hospital, three members of a one family — elderly Mohamed Hamouda, his teenage granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were fatally injured when an 26-foot high wall collapsed on top of their dwelling in a coastal area of Gaza City. No fewer than five additional people were hurt in the incident. Their relatives on Tuesday began clearing the debris that had entombed their family and rebuilding the temporary homes for survivors. Humanitarian Distribution and Continuing Emergency United Nations agencies and its humanitarian partners were distributing shelter kits, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as food and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. Most of Palestinians reside in makeshift shelters since their houses were reduced to ruins during the war. Humanitarian organizations contend an insufficient amount of shelter materials are reaching Gaza under the ceasefire. Casualty Numbers After the Ceasefire Local health authorities, which is part of the administration, says over 440 individuals have been fatally shot by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the truce went into effect. The ministry keeps detailed fatality records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, stated on that day that no fewer than one hundred children under the age of 18 – 60 boys and 40 females – had been killed after the ceasefire started due to armed actions, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. Those figures, he said, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant documentation, but the overall count is believed to be greater. He noted that hundreds of minors had been injured. "Although 'bombings and shootings have slowed' during the ceasefire, they have not stopped," Elder informed journalists at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be considered a catastrophe in any other place," he concluded. Another Winter of Struggle Gaza’s residents of more than 2 million individuals has been fighting to keep the freezing temperatures and bad weather at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a absence of sturdier temporary housing, which is urgently needed throughout the winter months. It’s the third winter after the war involving the state and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 individuals and abducted two hundred and fifty-one more into Gaza. The local health authority reports over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.