Palestinian woman and two children crushed to death outside bakery in Gaza

CNN
—

Three Palestinians, including two children and a woman, were crushed to death Friday while queuing outside a bakery in central Gaza amid a worsening food crisis in the enclave, according to Palestinian hospital authorities.

One of the victims’ father, Osama Abu Al-Laban, told CNN he gave his 17-year-old daughter money to buy a loaf of bread with her sister before she was swept up while waiting in the women’s line.

“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 in central Gaza said it received the three victims.

Bakery lines have become places of desperation and overcrowding as Palestinians struggle to find food for themselves and their families.

Hunger has spiked as the food crisis worsens under Israel’s ongoing intense military operation in the north. Aid organizations have warned that people there are on the brink of famine, with some telling CNN that commercial traffic to Gaza has “came to a standstill”.

Shortly after the crush, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday that all bakeries in central Gaza have closed due to severe supply shortages. The WFP said bread was often the only food families in Gaza could access – and “now even that is slipping out of reach.”

“The suffering here is unimaginable. I have been standing for four hours trying to get a single loaf of bread. Four hours and I still can’t get bread home,” Gaza resident Karam Afali told CNN outside the same bakery where the three Palestinians died.

Earlier this week, three women were killed by gunfire while standing in line at a bakery in Deir al Balah, according to a statement from their families sent to CNN.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that armed looting – fueled by the breakdown of public order and security in Gaza – has become increasingly organized.

The agency has said the challenges of delivering aid to Gaza have become “increasingly prohibitive”, with “trucks frequently delayed at various holding points, often looted and subjected to escalating attacks.”