Severe Winter Storms Claim Five Lives in Gaza Camps

By Staff, Agencies

Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents in Gaza, killing at least four displaced Palestinians amid ongoing humanitarian crises after years of "Israeli" bombardment and aid shortfalls.

A ceasefire has been in effect since October, but aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

The dead include two women, a girl and a man, officials at the Shifa hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies, said on Tuesday.

The Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.

Three family members were killed and at least five injured when an eight-meter wall collapsed onto their Gaza City tent; relatives began clearing rubble and rebuilding shelters.

“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the family funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”

The UN and partners distributed emergency aid in Gaza, where most Palestinians remain in makeshift tents amid a shortage of shelter supplies since the war.

Gaza’s health ministry reported over 440 martyred by "Israeli" fire since the ceasefire, maintaining martyrs’ records regarded as generally reliable by UN agencies and experts.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said at least 100 children killed and hundreds wounded in Gaza since the truce began, though the true toll is likely higher.

While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.

Gaza’s 2 million residents face winter storms and aid shortages in makeshift shelters, marking the third harsh winter since the October 2023 war with "Israel".

Gaza’s health ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been martyred in “Israel’s “genocidal war.