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

CNN
—

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

One of the victims, 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 away 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 didn’t find her until she was brought out dead. I have no idea what happened,” Al-Laban said.

Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, said it had admitted the three injured.

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

Hunger has increased in the Gaza Strip as the food crisis worsens amid Israel’s ongoing intensive military operation in the north. Aid groups have warned that people there are on the brink of famine. Some told CNN that commercial traffic to Gaza had “come to a complete standstill.”

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

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

Three women were killed by gunfire while queuing at a bakery in Deir al Balah earlier this week, according to a statement from their families 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 – is becoming increasingly organized.

The agency said challenges in delivering aid to Gaza had become “increasingly insurmountable” as “trucks were frequently held up at various stopping points, often looted and subjected to escalating attacks.”