TEL AVIV: Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the crush of a crowd at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip, the group said, the first time it has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.
It said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.
It was also the first time that GHF has confirmed deaths at one of its distribution sites, although Palestinian witnesses, health officials and U.N. agencies say hundreds of people have been killed while heading to the hubs to get food.
Stun grenades and pepper spray caused chaos, witnesses say
Some witnesses said the crowd panicked after receiving messages that no aid would be distributed or would only be distributed later. Others said people became trapped while attempting to move through a turnstile system, which creates a bottleneck.
Omar Al-Najjar, a resident of the nearby city of Rafah, said people were gasping for air, possibly from tear gas.
The injuries were “not from gunfire, but from people clustering and pushing against each other,” Al-Najjar said as he carried, with three other men, an injured stranger to a hospital. He said the chaos at the sites is forcing Palestinians to “march towards death.”
“They used stun grenades and pepper spray against us," said Abdullah Aleyat, who was at the GHF site on Wednesday morning.
"When they saw people killing each other, they opened the gate and people stepped over each other and suffocated,” Aleyat said, as he stood in a hospital room with some of the injured.
Videos released earlier this year by GHF from an aid distribution showed hundreds of Palestinians jostling for aid, and sprinting towards the sites when they opened.
In other videos obtained recently by The Associated Press from an American contractor working with GHF, Palestinians seeking access to the sites are pictured crowded between metal fences, as contractors deploy tear gas and stun grenades.
The sites are inside Israeli military zones protected by private American contractors. Israel troops surround the sites, but the army says they are not in the immediate vicinity.
The United Nations human rights office and Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 875 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed while seeking food since May, with 674 of those in the vicinity of aid distribution sites run by GHF.
The ministry and witnesses say most of the deaths have come from Israeli gunfire. The Israeli army says it fires warning shots and only uses live fire if crowds threaten its soldiers.
GHF, an American organization registered in Delaware, was established in February to distribute aid during the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis.
Across Gaza, strikes kill 41 as Israel opens a new military corridor
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.
Israel blames Hamas for the civilian deaths because the group often operates in residential areas.
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli military announced the opening of a new corridor — the fourth — that bisects Khan Younis, where Israeli troops have seized land in what they said is a pressure tactic against Hamas. In the past, these narrow strips of land have been a serious hurdle during ceasefire negotiations, as Israel has said it wants to maintain military presence in them.
Negotiations in the Qatari capital between Israel and Hamas are at a standstill, after 21 months of war, which began with the militants' cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023. That day, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Fifty hostages are still being held, less than half of them believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. The United Nations and other international organizations consider its figures to be the most reliable count of war casualties.
