TWENTY people desperate to get food have been killed “amid a chaotic and dangerous surge” at an aid distribution site in southern Gaza.

Nineteen were trampled to death with one person stabbed in the “tragic accident,” the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said.

The GHF said it believed the harrowing surge was “driven by agitators in the crowd” who were affiliated to Hamas.

Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it had received 10 bodies who had died due to “suffocation” after an aid site was shut by the GHF’s US private security contractors.

The GHF said the stampede was “driven by agitators in the crowd”, adding: “We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas – deliberately fomented the unrest”.