“More than 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire of early October,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters at a UN briefing via video link from Gaza.
“Survival remains conditional. Whilst the bombings and the shootings have slowed, have reduced during the ceasefire, they have not stopped,” he said.
Elder said nearly all of the deaths of the 60 boys and 40 girls were caused by military attacks, including air strikes, drone strikes, tank shelling, gunfire and quadcopters. A small number were caused by unexploded remnants of war.
The death toll is likely an underestimate as it is based only on cases for which sufficient information was available, he added.
Six deaths on Tuesday
A rainstorm swept across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, flooding hundreds of tents, collapsing homes sheltering families displaced by more than two years of war and killing at least six people, local health officials said.
Medics said five people, including two women and a girl, were killed when homes collapsed near Gaza City’s beach, while a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold in a tent in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Read More: 5 children among 13 killed in Israeli strikes
Tents were torn from their stakes, some flying dozens of metres before crashing to the ground. Others lay crumpled in muddy pools as families scrambled to salvage what they could.
Residents tried to resecure remaining shelters, hammering in loosened pegs and stacking sandbags around the edges to prevent floodwaters from pouring inside.
“We didn’t realize what was happening until the wall started collapsing – an eight-metre-high wall, a strong concrete wall,” said Bassel Hamuda, a displaced resident in Gaza. “Because of the speed and force of the wind, the wall fell on top of us, onto three tents.”
“The elderly man, 73 years old, was martyred. His son’s wife was killed, and his son’s daughter was killed,” he told Reuters.
Three months after a ceasefire halted major combat, Israeli forces have ordered the near-total depopulation of nearly two-thirds of Gaza, forcing its more than 2 million residents into a narrow coastal strip where most live in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
Relative gather at morgue
Dozens of relatives gathered at a hospital morgue on Tuesday for special prayers over bodies laid on medical stretchers before funerals.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said at least 31 Palestinians had died since the start of winter due to exposure to cold or the collapse of unsafe buildings damaged by previous Israeli strikes.
It said about 7,000 tents were damaged in the past 48 hours, most of whose occupants have no alternative shelter.
Municipal and civil defence officials said they were unable to cope with the storm because of fuel shortages and damaged equipment. During the war, Israel destroyed hundreds of vehicles needed for emergency response, including bulldozers and water pumps.
A UN report in December said 761 displacement sites hosting about 850,000 people were at high risk of flooding, and thousands had moved in anticipation of heavy rain.
UN and Palestinian officials said at least 300,000 new tents were urgently needed for the roughly 1.5 million people still displaced. Most existing shelters are worn out or made of thin plastic and cloth sheeting.