“It was a terrifying sight,” al-Batniji told Drop Site News. “The Americans were spraying pepper gas at us; it burns and affects the nervous system of the human body. You just can’t handle it. You’re under pressure. The people are all pushed together and all trampling on each other. There is no air and you feel shortness of breath—everyone wants to go get their food.”

At least 21 people were killed in the incident, according to the Gaza health ministry, and 15 of them died from suffocation due to the gas and the stampede at the site—what the ministry now calls “death traps”—while six others were shot on the road leading to it. Among those killed was al-Batniji’s 22-year-old cousin, Wael. “As soon as he arrived, he fell and was trampled on by everyone.”

“Those behind me started to step forward and push each other. People threw each other onto the fence. The Americans refused to open the gate and left it closed,” Musa al-Quwaider, 23, told Drop Site. “The suffocating people were left lying on the ground, and no one came to them. They didn’t acknowledge them.”

“All the people were pressing all on top of each other to the point that there were children in front of me. [There was] maybe a 14- or 15-year-old boy saying to me, ‘Uncle, please save me,’” Mohammed al-Nams, 28, said, adding that GHF guards nearby refused to open the gate despite the crush of people. “I was surrounded for about 15 to 20 minutes, and we couldn’t catch our breath.”