Winter cold and rains as well as malnutrition are still killing people in Gaza, despite the ceasefire being in its fourth month.
Ten children in Gaza have died from hypothermia since the beginning of the winter, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday. A three-month old baby died from severe cold at Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
When temperatures fall, “the most affected group is children,” Dr. Ahmad Al Faraa, head of the pediatrics department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told CNN earlier this month.
Hundreds of thousands of people are staying in displacement sites and exposed to cold and rainy winter conditions,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday. It added that strong winds had damaged hundreds of tents in the last week.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains severe despite the current ceasefire. “Plunging temperatures, wind, rain & floods. Winter keeps compounding the misery of people in the Gaza Strip, where the vast majority remain forcibly displaced & living in tents & half-standing buildings,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the main UN agency in the Palestinian territories.
