Three Palestinians, including two children and a woman, were crushed to death on Friday while in line at a bakery in central Gaza amid a worsening food crisis in the enclave, according to Palestinian hospital officials.
“Where did she go? How did she get in? How did she leave? I don’t know. I only found her when they brought her out dead. I have no idea what happened,” Al-Laban said.
Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, said it received the three casualties.
Bakery lines have become sites of desperation and overcrowding as Palestinians fight to find food for themselves and their family.
Soon after the crush, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday that all bakeries in central Gaza have shut down due to severe supply shortages. The WFP said that bread was often the only food families in Gaza could access – and “now, even that is slipping out of reach.”
The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that armed looting – fueled by the breakdown in public order and safety in Gaza – has become increasingly organized.
The agency has said the the challenges involved in delivering aid to Gaza had become “increasingly insurmountable,” with “trucks frequently delayed at various holding points, often looted, and subjected to escalating attacks.”