At least 20 Palestinians have been killed at a food distribution centre run by an Israeli-backed American organisation in the Gaza Strip, mostly from being trampled, the group said.
They were the first deaths reported at one of the group’s sites although hundreds have been killed by Israeli forces on the roads leading to them, according to witnesses and health officials.
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting unrest at the food distribution centre, leading to a “dangerous surge”, but it provided no evidence to support the claim.
Witnesses said GHF guards threw stun grenades and used pepper spray on people pressing to get into the site before it opened, causing a panic in the narrow, fenced-in entrance.
Since the group’s operations began in late May, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in shootings by Israeli soldiers while on roads heading to the sites.
GHF’s four sites are all in military-controlled zones, and the Israeli military has said its troops have only fired warning shots to control crowds.
Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, and the territory is teetering on the edge of famine, according to food security experts.
GHF said it believed that 19 of the dead died from trampling at its food distribution centre between the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah and one was killed by a stabbing in the crowd.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 17 people suffocated at the site and three others were shot.
It was not clear if the shootings took place during the crush or earlier on the road to the centre. The witnesses did not report shots fired at the centre but said Israeli troops fired toward the crowds as they headed to it.
Witnesses said that thousands of Palestinians arrived at the site early in the morning, and the American contractors guarding it did not open the gates. It was not clear if it was before the site’s opening time or if it was not operating at all, since schedules often change.
The crowd surged forward at the turnstiles in the fenced-in entranceway, said one survivor, Ahmed Abu Amra.
“The Americans were calling out on the loudspeakers, ‘go back, go back.’ But no one could turn around because it was so crowded,” he said. “Everyone was on top of each other. We tried to pull out the people who were underneath, but we couldn’t. The Americans were throwing stun grenades at us.”
Other witnesses said the contractors used pepper spray as well. The Health Ministry said tear gas was used, but GHF denied that and said its contractors deployed “limited use of pepper spray”.
“Everyone suffocated from people crushing on top of each other,” said Omar al-Najjar, a Rafah resident, as he and other men carried a wounded man on a stretcher. He said the chaos at the sites is forcing Palestinians to “march towards death”.
GHF said it believed elements in the crowd “armed and affiliated with Hamas” fomented the unrest. It said that its contractors identified men with firearms in the crowd and confiscated one.
Distribution at the GHF sites has often been chaotic. Boxes of food are left stacked on the ground inside the centre and, once opened, crowds charge in to grab whatever they can, according to witnesses and videos released by GHF itself.
In videos obtained recently by The Associated Press from an American contractor working with GHF, contractors are seen using tear gas and stun grenades to keep crowds back behind metal fences or to force them to disperse. Gunshots can also be heard.
The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that 875 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food since May. Of those, 674 were killed while en route to GHF food sites. The rest were reportedly killed while waiting for aid trucks entering Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 22 people in Gaza City, including 11 children and three women, and 19 others in Khan Younis. The Israeli military said it has struck more than 120 targets in the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, including Hamas military infrastructure of tunnels and weapons storage facilities.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that hospitals have received a total of 94 bodies over the past 24 hours, with another 252 wounded.
