How Israel Is Helping Gaza Gangs to Sow Societal Collapse

Israel is aiding criminal gangs in Rafah, some of whom have ties to the Islamic State (IS), to loot humanitarian aid under military protection, Gaza sources including civil society leaders, police officials and a UN official have told The new Arab.

Although they refuse to intervene against these armed criminals, the Israeli Defense Forces do opening fire on local police officers in an attempt to prevent the looting.

Sources in Gaza say the rise of organized gangs is Israel’s latest pretext to prevent it entry of humanitarian aid and cause societal collapse while blaming Palestinians for their own suffering.

The Israeli government also uses this lawlessness to promote the idea of ​​allowing foreign private security companies to operate in Gaza under a ‘humanitarian guise’.

Local police, together with Hamas militants and other armed groups, have now declared war on criminal gangs to restore some degree of public order.

Israeli-sponsored looting in broad daylight

On November 18, UN agencies finally managed to gain access to southern Gaza for 109 trucks, after months of extreme Israeli restrictions that reduced Gazans’ daily food intake to 187-454 grams per person in October.

Before the Israeli war, at least 500 trucks entered Gaza per working day, which was still not enough meet the daily needs of the population.

However, this small humanitarian success did not last long: 98 of the trucks were looted by armed gangs in an area that had been declared a zone. “death zone” under full Israeli military control, where no Palestinians are allowed.

A UN official said this The new Arab that two of the trucks attempted to reach the northern half of Gaza after obtaining the necessary permits from Israel, but were then held up by the Israeli army for five hours at the Netzarim Corridorwhich led to them being looted.

Both incidents have exacerbated and created acute famine in southern Gaza gigantic queues outside the few remaining bakeries in Deir al-Balah.

Far from being exceptions, humanitarian ambushes have become routine in Gaza. According to one internal UN memothe Israeli army is providing “passive” and even “active” protection to armed criminal gangs that have established a “military-like compound” in an area in eastern Rafah “restricted, controlled and monitored by the IDF.”

If a Palestinian citizen were to attempt to reach this area on foot, he would immediately be targeted by Israeli drones or troops. In contrast, gang members operate in the same zone with only AK-47s and other weapons 100 meters away of Israeli soldiers and tanks without sustaining damage.

Two sources in the Gaza police and a civil society leader spoken to The new Arab said the Israeli army never opens fire on armed gang members who loot trucks at gunpoint, but focuses on local police officers trying to stop the looting.

Another way local sources say Israel encourages looting is by banning cigarettes from entering Gaza, but at the same time allowing them to be smuggled in the contents of aid trucks. This has caused prices for a single package to skyrocket more than $500encouraging criminal gangs to loot aid trucks and distribute their contents in search of hidden cigarettes.

Israel could easily prevent this by simply allowing cigarettes to enter Gaza legally or by thwarting smuggling attempts. A senior EU official said this The new Arab that the Israeli military thoroughly inspects the contents of every truck entering Gaza and will often prevent a truck from entering if they find a “nail cutter or a tent the wrong color.”

Cigarette smuggling in emergency vehicles is therefore seen as a deliberate attempt to fuel lawlessness.

Two warlords lead the gangs

Two wanted criminals are thought to be behind the main gangs looting most of Gaza’s aid, police sources said The new Arab.

Together they have set up organized gangs of around 200 people and have their own warehouses where they store looted goods and later sell them for a profit to local traders.

The gangs also extort humanitarian aid groups by demanding “protection fees” of more than $4,000 per truck to allow safe passage without being looted. Israel even recommended that NGOs pay bribes through a specific company that acts as an intermediary.

The first gang leader is Yasser Abu Shabab, a drug dealer who was convicted and imprisoned several times in Gaza until police released him during the ongoing war.

Last week police officers and Hamas militants tried to eliminate Abu Shabab in an ambush that killed eleven members of his gang, including his brother and partner Fathi, and the gang’s accountant. Thirty others were injured, according to police reports seen The new Arab.

A day later, Abu Shabab retaliated by looting a fuel truck, setting fire to another and preventing others from reaching the Kerem Shalom border crossing to collect aid from the Israeli side, local sources said.

The second gang leader is Shadi al-Soufia convicted murderer and son of an alleged collaborator with Israel. Al-Soufi was sentenced to death for murder in 2020 Jabr al-Qeeqa leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Al-Qeeq himself was imprisoned by Israel for fifteen years for participating in the purge of collaborators in Gaza during the First Intifada, one of whom was al-Soufi’s father.

Al-Soufi was captured by Gaza police in a special operation in late 2020. His clan, Al-Tarabin, announced that same year Shadi had escaped to Sinai, before reappearing in Gaza after the Israeli ground invasion.

Last week, Shadi appeared in online images denies the allegations against him, but police sources insist he is the leader of some of these gangs. Mid-October, Gaza’s Internal Security Service issued an order for Shadi’s arrest for questioning.

Gaza security forces tried to eliminate al-Soufi in an ambush in late September, a source close to police said The new Arabbut they misidentified his vehicle and accidentally killed a humanitarian aid worker, Islam Hijazi.

Police sources say both Abu Shabab and al-Soufi have ties to Islamic State groups in Sinai that facilitate the smuggling into Gaza.

Israel arms criminal gangs

This was stated by a former senior Palestinian Authority official, who is currently helping INGOs obtain Israeli permits for aid entry into Gaza. The new Arab that when Israeli forces invade an area, they deliberately leave light weapons on the corpses of Hamas fighters so that they can be collected by gangs and clans when the army leaves.

Local Palestinian reporters have done that confirmed thiswhere prominent gangs that loot aid have obtained some of their weapons in this way.

Israel is also suspected of directly supplying weapons to gangs. In March the Israeli army said explicitly it considered arming clans in Gaza that were rivals to Hamas. Some have ties to Islamic State and al-Qaeda, such as the Doghmush clan.

The Israeli government intended moves the clans responsible for distributing aid and the day-to-day management of Gaza governance and securityand running “Hamas-free zones.”

Unusual in August this year footage appeared of teenagers and young men from a clan in Deir al-Balah parading in the middle of the street in broad daylight with brand new US-made M-16 rifles and confidently firing shots into the air without being attacked by the Israeli army, which active less than a kilometer away.

What made the incident even more remarkable is that Israel has near-constant drone surveillance over the entire Gaza Strip, and if you walk around with a gun you are immediately a target for the Israeli military to bomb or attack. Yet the Israeli army did nothing with these armed men.

For example, Joe Saba, the chairman of the board of directors of ANERA, said in Octoberciting discussions with Israeli officials, that if a Gaza citizen tried to defend his home from looters with a gun, an Israeli drone would immediately target the civilian as a “legitimate target.”

Even more intriguing, M-16 rifles are in short supply in Gaza, where armed groups rely on smuggled AK-47s, raising suspicions that Israel is supplying these weapons to sow chaos.

Pretext for banning aid

Last Tuesday, the Israeli government admitted that it had banned the entry of commercial goods to the private sector in Gaza since October 2024, when Israel began implementing the Generals Plan. strategy to starve Gazans into submission.

In response to filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court by Israeli human rights organizations like Gisha, Netanyahu’s government cited the plundering of aid by criminal gangs as a reason for such a ban, claiming that “aid organizations are struggling to provide aid for various reasons unrelated to the IDF”.

But if Gisha herself emphasizesIsrael is the party responsible for the collapsing infrastructure and blocked roads in Gaza due to Israeli shelling, as well as the collapse of law and order due to the systematic targeting of local government and law enforcement personnel.

Muhammad Shehada is a Gaza-based Palestinian writer and analyst and EU Affairs Manager at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Follow him on Twitter: @muhammadshehad2