Devastating stampede at Gaza aid hub ‘sees 19 Palestinians trampled to death'
A devastating stampede at an aid hub in war-torn Gaza is said to have left 19 Palestinians trampled to death.
The tragedy came after the UN earlier recorded almost 900 'desperate and hungry Gazans' have been killed in the stricken enclave seeking food in recent weeks. As many as 19 people were trampled on Wednesday with another fatally stabbed in violence at the site, according to the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
It comes as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 kids, according to hospital officials. GHF, whose operations have stoked controversy with over 170 charities and other NGOs calling for it to be shut, accused militant group Hamas of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation leading to the violence.
It marks the first time the Israeli-backed US group has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic, Gaza's Health Ministry and witnesses claimed. The incident occurred at a distribution hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
The crowd panicked after receiving messages that no aid would be distributed or would only be given out later, some witnesses said. And others said people became trapped while trying to move through a turnstile system, which creates a bottleneck.
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," Omar 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," Abdullah Aleyat, who was at the GHF site on Wednesday morning, said. "When they saw people killing each other, they opened the gate and people stepped over each other and suffocated," Aleyat explained, standing in a hospital room with some of the injured.
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 had struck over 120 targets in the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, including Hamas military infrastructure of tunnels and weapons storage facilities.
On Tuesday, the UN disclosed figures showing its recorded death toll for Palestinians seeking food since May. 'As of 13 July, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites,' Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said. And the other 201 were killed seeking food 'on the routes of aid convoys or near aid convoys' run by the UN or its partners still operating in Gaza, the spokesperson explained.
Claims emerged last month that Israeli troops deliberately fired at Palestinians near aid sites in Gaza. It was alleged troops were ordered to shoot at crowds despite posing no threat. But Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister, Israel Katz, rejected respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz's report.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced the opening of a fourth corridor – bisecting the city of Khan Younis – where troops have seized land in what they said is a pressure tactic against Hamas. Last week, US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu held two days of talks ending with no sign of a breakthrough in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war was sparked by Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel in 2023, which killed about 1,200 people – with 251 hostages taken. Israel's offensive has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Leader Live
29 minutes ago
- Leader Live
At least 23 people seeking food killed by Israeli gunfire, health officials say
Witnesses described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged around aid sites as the malnutrition-related death toll surged. Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than two million, which experts have warned is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. Yousef Abed, among the crowds en-route to a distribution point, described coming under what he called indiscriminate fire, looking around and seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground. 'I couldn't stop and help them because of the bullets,' he said. Southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital said it had received bodies from near multiple distribution sites, including eight from Teina, about 1.8 miles from a distribution site in Khan Younis run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – a private US and Israeli-backed contractor that took over aid distribution more than two months ago. The hospital also received one body from Shakoush, near a different GHF site in Rafah. Another nine were killed by troops near the Morag corridor who were awaiting trucks entering Gaza through an Israeli border crossing, it said. Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, seeking food in Teina and Morag, said the shootings occurred on the route to the distribution points, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. They said they saw soldiers open fire on hungry crowds advancing towards the troops. Further north in central Gaza, hospital officials described a similar episode, with Israeli troops opening fire on Sunday morning towards crowds of Palestinians trying to get to GHF's fourth and northern-most distribution point. 'Troops were trying to prevent people from advancing,' one witness said. 'They opened fire and we fled. Some people were shot.' At least five people were killed and 27 were injured at GHF's site near the Netzarim corridor, Awda Hospital said. Eyewitnesses seeking food in Gaza have reported similar gunfire attacks in recent days near aid distribution sites, leaving dozens of Palestinians dead. The United Nations reported 859 people were killed near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31, and hundreds more have been killed along the routes of UN-led food convoys. The GHF launched in May as Israel sought an alternative to the UN-run system, which had safely delivered aid for much of the war but was accused by Israel of allowing Hamas, which guarded convoys early in the war, to siphon supplies. Israel has not offered evidence of widespread theft. The UN has denied it. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it only fires warning shots as well. Both claimed the death tolls have been exaggerated. Neither Israel's military nor GHF immediately responded to questions about Sunday's reported fatalities. Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry also said six more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours. This brings the death toll among Palestinian adults to 82 in the past five weeks since the ministry started counting deaths among adults in late June, it said. Ninety-three children have also died of causes related to malnutrition since the war in Gaza started in 2023, the ministry said.
Rhyl Journal
29 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
At least 23 people seeking food killed by Israeli gunfire, health officials say
Witnesses described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged around aid sites as the malnutrition-related death toll surged. Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than two million, which experts have warned is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. Yousef Abed, among the crowds en-route to a distribution point, described coming under what he called indiscriminate fire, looking around and seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground. 'I couldn't stop and help them because of the bullets,' he said. Southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital said it had received bodies from near multiple distribution sites, including eight from Teina, about 1.8 miles from a distribution site in Khan Younis run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – a private US and Israeli-backed contractor that took over aid distribution more than two months ago. The hospital also received one body from Shakoush, near a different GHF site in Rafah. Another nine were killed by troops near the Morag corridor who were awaiting trucks entering Gaza through an Israeli border crossing, it said. Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, seeking food in Teina and Morag, said the shootings occurred on the route to the distribution points, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. They said they saw soldiers open fire on hungry crowds advancing towards the troops. Further north in central Gaza, hospital officials described a similar episode, with Israeli troops opening fire on Sunday morning towards crowds of Palestinians trying to get to GHF's fourth and northern-most distribution point. 'Troops were trying to prevent people from advancing,' one witness said. 'They opened fire and we fled. Some people were shot.' At least five people were killed and 27 were injured at GHF's site near the Netzarim corridor, Awda Hospital said. Eyewitnesses seeking food in Gaza have reported similar gunfire attacks in recent days near aid distribution sites, leaving dozens of Palestinians dead. The United Nations reported 859 people were killed near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31, and hundreds more have been killed along the routes of UN-led food convoys. The GHF launched in May as Israel sought an alternative to the UN-run system, which had safely delivered aid for much of the war but was accused by Israel of allowing Hamas, which guarded convoys early in the war, to siphon supplies. Israel has not offered evidence of widespread theft. The UN has denied it. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it only fires warning shots as well. Both claimed the death tolls have been exaggerated. Neither Israel's military nor GHF immediately responded to questions about Sunday's reported fatalities. Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry also said six more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours. This brings the death toll among Palestinian adults to 82 in the past five weeks since the ministry started counting deaths among adults in late June, it said. Ninety-three children have also died of causes related to malnutrition since the war in Gaza started in 2023, the ministry said.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Gaza hospitals say 18 killed by Israeli fire as aid site shootings continue to rise
Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli fire killed more than a dozen people on Saturday, eight of them while trying to get food, as malnutrition-related deaths continue to rise in the territory. The bloodshed comes a day after Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited an aid distribution site run by the Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Global outrage has grown over Israel's restrictions on aid and the deadly unrest surrounding the GHF sites, with daily reports of shootings at all four locations since the group took over aid distribution at the end of May. The UN says 859 Palestinians have been killed during that time in the vicinity of these sites, and more than 500 have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three who were in the area around a distribution site. Nasser hospital also said Israeli forces killed five Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid in the south. In a statement to the Associated Press, GHF said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites'. Both the GHF and the Israeli army have said they only shoot if there is a threat, or fire warning shots to disperse crowds. Doctors in Gaza have reported treating an increasing number of gunshot and shrapnel wounds in patients who were trying to get food at the aid sites. 'We weren't close to them [the troops] and there was no threat,' a witness, Abed Salah, who was among crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, told AP. 'I escaped death miraculously.' Officials added that 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza, with five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who accompanied Witkoff on the trip on Friday, claimed the GHF sites were delivering 'more than one million meals a day' and called the distribution 'an incredible feat'. Reports from aid workers, doctors, and journalists in Gaza paint a different story, with UN-backed food security experts saying this week that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' is now playing out in Gaza. Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, including a child, the territory's health ministry said on Saturday. This brings the total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion After international outcry, airdrops of aid have resumed, and several European countries have announced plans to join the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating the drops, but aid groups say this delivers only a fraction of what aid trucks can supply – and are also dangerous. What is really needed, they say, is to open the land borders and restore the full flow of aid. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient + inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,' Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. The German government, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, joined calls for Israel to deliver more aid on Saturday, saying that the current amount remains 'very insufficient'. The criticism came after the German military completed its first food airdrops into Gaza. In Tel Aviv, Witkoff joined families of hostages protesting, as they urged the Israeli government to end the war and release their loved ones. Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP: 'The war needs to end. The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so.' Negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and a deal for the release of hostages ended in deadlock last week, with Witkoff blaming Hamas for a 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire'. Hamas said on Saturday that it would not lay down arms unless an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state is established.
