Three dead in Gaza bakery stampede amid food crisis

Three people, including two girls aged 13 and 17 and a 50-year-old woman, were crushed to death Friday as a crowd surged at a bakery in Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah, desperate for bread amid a worsening food crisis, news reports said.

They died from suffocation, according to doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Severe shortages of flour have forced some bakeries to close, leaving families reliant on limited humanitarian aid for food.

Crowds and chaos have increased as hunger deepens across Gaza, where food supplies allowed by Israel have dropped to near record lows.

In Gaza, reports indicate that 44,000 have been killed and nearly all 2.3 million residents displaced since the war escalated over a year ago.