AT least five Palestinian people have been killed in Gaza as a fierce winter storm toppled buildings damaged by Israeli attacks in its genocidal war on the territory, local health officials said.
Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls.
A ceasefire has been in effect since October 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.
The people who died in Tuesday’s stormy conditions include two women, a girl and a man, according to al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received their bodies.
There were also reports of several other deaths of children and the elderly due to the cold weather.
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday that a one-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight.
Two other children had died on Monday night due to the freezing conditions and inadequate shelter, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire on Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.
Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.
“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda told the Associated Press after the 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.”
A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.
Civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal warned of catastrophic repercussions from the storm for Gaza’s population, the majority of whom have been left without adequate shelter as a result of Israel’s war and its ongoing restrictions on goods entering the territory.
The majority of Palestinians in Gaza live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.
The UN and its humanitarian partners have been distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
But Israel continues to block desperately needed humanitarian aid and critical supplies for shelters from entering the besieged Gaza Strip in violation of a ceasefire that began on October 10.
In a statement, Hamas said it was regrettable that the international community was failing to provide relief to Gaza, saying the rising death toll and spread of illness showed the territory was “experiencing the most horrific form of genocide”.