Two women and a minor girl died today when they were trampled by a crowd gathered outside a bakery in Deir al-Bala to buy bread, witnesses and a medical source in this central Gaza Strip city said.

The victims were trampled while trying to buy bread, Al Aqsa Hospital said in a statement.

“The crowd was thick” and “suddenly there were shouts. They fell to the ground” and died “of suffocation,” an eyewitness told AFP.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Osama Abu Luban, whose daughter was killed. “I went to the market with my daughter. She went to buy bread, and had barely managed to get one, when she was drawn away by a crowd of women. They brought me her lifeless body,” he added.

The World Health Organization warned on Thursday of severe shortages of medicine, food, shelter and fuel in the Gaza Strip, describing a “catastrophic” situation. The UN also said on Wednesday that all bakeries in the central Gaza Strip may close due to a lack of raw materials, even though these shops are “one of the few remaining sources of food”.