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Strong cold-season winds brought walls down upon flimsy shelters housing Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing no fewer than 4 people. These deaths highlights the dangerous situation that continue after more than 24 months of intense airstrikes and critical shortages of humanitarian assistance.

Ceasefire Provides Little Respite from Severe Elements

While a truce has been active from last fall, aid groups report that Palestinians do not have the sufficient housing required to survive frequent winter storms.

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 man.

Separately, the Gaza health ministry announced on the same day that a 12-month-old infant died of extreme cold overnight.

"The world has allowed 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 all imaginable reasons of death in the world in the Gaza Strip."

Family Buried in Shelter Collapse

As per the medical center, three people of a one family — 72-year-old a man, his 15-year-old granddaughter, and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an eight-metre high wall fell on top of their dwelling in a area near the sea of the city. No fewer than five others were injured in the event.

Family members on Tuesday started clearing the rubble that had entombed their loved ones and reconstructing the temporary homes for those who remained.

Aid Distribution and Continuing Crisis

United Nations agencies and its aid organization allies were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothing as well as nutrition and hygiene supplies across Gaza, said the relevant UN coordination body.

Most of Palestinians live in improvised shelters since their homes were reduced to ruins during the hostilities. Aid groups say an insufficient amount of shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.

Casualty Numbers Since the Ceasefire

The Gaza health ministry, which is part of the administration, reports over 440 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their remains taken to hospitals since the ceasefire began. The ministry maintains comprehensive casualty records that are seen as largely accurate by international bodies and independent experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children's fund, said on that day that no fewer than one hundred minors under the age of 18 – sixty boys and forty females – had been lost their lives since the truce started because of military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and employment of bullets. These numbers, he explained, represented incidents where sufficient information had been gathered to warrant recording, but the total toll is believed to be higher. He added that many hundreds of children had been wounded.

"Although 'bombings and gunfire have decreased' under the truce, they have not stopped," Elder informed reporters at a press conference in Geneva by video from Gaza City. "So what the international community now terms quiet would be considered a crisis anywhere else," he concluded.

Third Cold Season of Struggle

Gaza’s residents of over two million people has been struggling to fend off the freezing temperatures and storms away while enduring shortages of assistance and a absence of more substantial temporary housing, which is urgently required throughout the winter months. This marks the third winter since the war between the state and the group began on a date in late 2023, when fighters stormed into southern Israel and killed around twelve hundred people and abducted 251 more into Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says over seventy-one thousand four hundred people have been killed in the subsequent military campaign.