TEHRAN – The skeletal remains of Gaza’s neighborhoods have become a site of renewed tragedy as Storm Byron batters the enclave, claiming over a dozen lives since Wednesday.

The dead include women and newborns, victims of a catastrophic intersection between extreme weather and a man-made humanitarian desert.

According to the Ministry of Interior, the toll is rising as gale-force winds and torrential rains trigger the collapse of structures previously fractured by months of Israeli bombardment.

In the harrowing early hours of Thursday, a newborn froze to death in the al-Mawasi area, while another infant succumbed to the cold in the Shati refugee camp on Friday morning.

These are not merely weather-related casualties; they are the direct result of a landscape stripped of its defenses.

Since October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed over 70,000, decimated over 60% of the enclave’s housing, and obliterated its civil infrastructure.

Now, around 1.9 million homeless Palestinians are forced to shelter in the ruins of bombed-out apartments or flimsy tents.

Over 27,000 of these tents have been swept away or submerged in what UNRWA’s Jonathan Fowler describes as “lakes of untreated sewage” caused by the systematic destruction of sanitation networks.

The crisis is exacerbated by a calculated blockade on “winterization” materials. Despite thousands of tons of aid sitting at the border, Israeli authorities continue to bar the entry of timber, tarps, and heavy-duty tents.

This “political choice,” as Fowler calls it, has left the population in a state of total vulnerability. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem characterized the deaths as a “continuation of the war of extermination,” noting that the storm is completing the destruction initiated by the bombs.

With over 4,300 distress calls received in 24 hours and rescuers digging through rubble with bare hands, Gaza’s winter has become the latest frontier in a relentless campaign of attrition.