At least 19 people killed in stampede at Gaza food distribution site
1 other person stabbed in the incident in Khan Younis in southern Gaza
At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday at an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in what the U.S.-backed group said was a crowd surge instigated by armed agitators.
The GHF, which is supported by Israel, said 19 people were trampled and another fatally stabbed during the crush at one of its centres in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Eyewitnesses told CBC News that guards at the site used pepper spray, tear gas and sound bombs directed at them.
Hani Hammad, 18, said he was caught in the middle of the crowd surge when he became trapped and unable to get out.
"I got stuck and I was being trampled on for maybe 30 minutes and I lost consciousness," Hammad told CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife.
Witnesses said they were ultimately trapped between the gates and the outer wire fence after the guards closed the gates on them.
"People kept gathering and pressuring each other; when people pushed each other ... those who couldn't stand fell under the people and were crushed," said another eyewitness, Mahmoud Fojo, 21, who was hurt in the stampede.
"Some people started jumping over the netted fence and got wounded. We were injured, and God saved us. We were under the people and we said the Shahada [death prayers]. We thought we were dying, finished," he added.
GHF, Hamas trade blame for killings
In a statement, GHF said it had "credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd — armed and affiliated with Hamas — deliberately fomented the unrest."
Hamas rejected the GHF allegation as "false and misleading," saying GHF guards and Israeli soldiers sprayed people with pepper gas and opened fire.
GHF said Hamas's account was "blatantly false."
"At no point was tear gas deployed, nor were shots fired into the crowd. Limited use of pepper spray was deployed, only to safeguard additional loss of life," GHF said in a written response to Reuters via e-mail.
"Today's incident is part of a larger pattern of Hamas trying to undermine and ultimately end GHF. It is no coincidence that this incident occurred during ceasefire negotiations, where Hamas continues to demand that GHF cease operations."
Palestinian health officials told Reuters people had died of suffocation at the site. One medic said lots of people had been crammed into a small space and had been crushed.
On Tuesday, the UN rights office in Geneva said it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks in the vicinity of aid sites and food convoys in Gaza, the majority of them close to GHF distribution points.
Most of those deaths were caused by gunfire that locals have blamed on the Israeli military. The military has acknowledged that Palestinian civilians were harmed near aid distribution centres, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned."
The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the accusation.
The UN has called the GHF's model "inherently unsafe" and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards.
Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, accused the GHF on Wednesday of gross mismanagement, saying its lack of crowd control and failure to uphold humanitarian principles had led to chaos and death among desperate civilians.
"People who flock in their thousands are hungry and exhausted, and they get squeezed into narrow places, amid shortages of aid and the absence of organization and discipline by the GHF," he told Reuters.
The war in Gaza, triggered in October 2023 by a deadly Hamas attack on Israel, has devastated large swaths of the coastal enclave, displaced almost all of the territory's population and led to widespread hunger and privation.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had completed a new road in southern Gaza separating several towns east of Khan Younis from the rest of the territory in an effort to disrupt Hamas operations.
Hamas wants distributor out
Palestinians see the road under Israeli army control as a way to exert pressure on Hamas in ongoing ceasefire talks, which started on July 6 and are being brokered by Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar with the backing of the United States.
Palestinian sources close to the negotiations said a breakthrough had not yet been reached on any of the main issues under discussion.
Hamas said Israel wanted to keep at least 40 per cent of the Gaza Strip under its control as part of any deal, which the group rejected. Hamas has also demanded the dismantlement of the GHF and the reinstatement of a UN-led aid delivery mechanism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will end once Hamas is disarmed and removed from Gaza.
Gaza local health authorities said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 87 people across the enclave on Wednesday.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the October 7, 2023, attack initiated by Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada and several other countries. An estimated 50 Israelis and foreign nationals remain captive in Gaza, including 28 hostages who have been declared dead and whose bodies are being withheld.
With files from CBC News and Mohamed El Saife