The Latest: 20 die in stampede at Gaza food distribution site as Israeli strikes kill 41 others

A stampede at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip killed 20 Palestinians on Wednesday, the group said, in the first acknowledgment of deadly violence at its operations.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund, an American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population, said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern city of Khan Younis. The organization accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.

The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, in Gaza City and Khan Younis, according to hospital officials. The Israeli military said it has struck more than 120 targets in the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, including Hamas military infrastructure of tunnels and weapons storage facilities.

Israel blames Hamas for the civilian deaths because the group often operates in residential areas.

Here’s the latest:

Hundreds of members of the Druze community from Majdal Shams and Druze villages in northern Israel have gathered along the border fence with Syria, trying to enter the country to support Druze armed groups as they continue to clash with Syria’s government forces.

Videos widely circulated on social media showed that many Druze were able to cross into Syria, where the majority of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live.

Meanwhile, hundreds of the Syrian Druze community gathered on the other side of the fence, though it was not immediately clear if they were demonstrating or trying to cross the border. The Israeli military said dozens have tried to cross into Israel. Tensions intensified when several Syrian Druze protesters stood atop a tractor waiving Druze flags and Israeli troops responded by lobbing tear gas, forcing them to shortly retreat.

Dozens have been killed in the hostilities sparked by a series of tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings.

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, briefly attended the court proceedings of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, saying he wanted to support the embattled Israeli leader in his ongoing corruption trial.

Huckabee’s visit to the courthouse was a rare act of involvement in his host country’s internal affairs. It comes after President Donald Trump condemned the trial as a “witch hunt.”

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Huckabee said the visit was a matter of “representing what the president has said repeatedly.”

Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.

“The president has made his position very clear,” Huckabee said ahead of his visit to the courthouse. “It’s a personal thing for him. He considers the Prime Minister a friend.” After the visit, Huckabee reposted Trump’s call for the trial to be thrown out and added the comment: “My conclusion? Trump is right…again.”

The Israeli army said Wednesday that it struck near the entrance to the Syrian Ministry of Defense in Damascus, as clashes continued in the southern Syrian city of Sweida after a ceasefire between government forces and Druze armed groups collapsed.

Israel has launched a series of airstrikes on convoys of government forces in southern Syria since the clashes erupted and has beefed up forces on the border. It has said it is acting to protect the Druze religious minority.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.

Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd outside one of its food distribution hubs, causing a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.

“They used stun grenades and pepper spray against us. They had aid inside, but they intentionally did not distribute it to let people crowd outside,″ said Abdullah Aleyat, who was at the GHF site on Wednesday morning.

Omar Al-Najjar, a resident of the nearby city of Rafah, said people were gasping for air, possibly from tear gas.

The injuries were “not from gunfire, but from people clustering and pushing against each other,” Al-Najjar said as he carried an injured stranger to a hospital.

The sites are inside Israeli military zones protected by private American contractors. Israel troops surround the sites, but the army says they are not in the immediate vicinity.

The United Nations human rights office and Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 875 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed while seeking food since May, with 674 of those in the vicinity of aid distribution sites run by GHF.