By Nour ElAssy
ARMED criminal gangs have been unleashed on the Gaza Strip by Israeli policy. On 5 June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly confirmed that Israel is arming these criminal factions and clans, admitting something we in Gaza already knew to be true. The goal? To reduce the number of casualties among Israeli soldiers – and to further fracture Palestinian society from the inside.
The results have been catastrophic. The presence of these gangs, many of whose members were imprisoned before this war for crimes against their own people, has added a new and terrifying layer to our suffering. We are no longer only afraid of the sky – but also of our neighbours, of the people walking among us. We don’t just fear hunger or bombs anymore. We fear betrayal.
A lot of attention has focused on Yasser Abu Shabab and his men, who Israel has armed to control territory in Rafah, in southern Gaza. But there are armed gangs everywhere now, controlling access to aid, even inside Gaza City.
The presence of these criminals among us has made us fearful of one another. My father has cautioned me to treat everyone around me like they are going to try to steal from me or are approaching to hurt me. My parents live in fear when I go out to report – not just because of Israeli bombs and bullets – but now also because of these gangs. As the looting has escalated, especially at the aid entry points, my parents told me to stop going out altogether, and I think they are right.
This is all so painful to witness because this is not who we are. This is not Gaza. We have lived under occupation and siege – even before this war – and our government had many flaws. But our communities were safe. We used to go out shopping for Eid at night during Ramadan and return to our homes after midnight. It never felt scary. Now, even in the middle of the day, we feel terrified to leave the battered homes and tents where we live, displaced.
A commodity of the cruel
Some of the people Israel is arming and empowering, such as Yasser Abu Shabab, were previously jailed for murder, drug trafficking, and other very serious crimes – even for spying for Israel. They were released from jail at the beginning of this war because keeping them imprisoned while Israel had starved and razed Gaza to the ground would have been cruel.
Other gangs might not be supported directly by Israel, but they are playing into Israel’s strategy of spreading chaos, fracturing our communities, and making Gaza ungovernable.
The gangs range in size from big and very dangerous to small groups of opportunists, and they are especially located in areas where aid is entering or being distributed. They loot UN trucks, selling the food at inflated prices – or sometimes the food just disappears altogether. They also steal food directly from people who risk their lives to get aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s deadly distribution centre.
“I saw them – the gang with rifles. They stopped a truck and pulled the driver out. Beat him. Then they took everything. Later that night, the flour they stole was being sold in the market for 850 shekels (about $240) a sack.”
Aid has become a commodity of the cruel. What should be free – bread, rice, oil – now appears in black markets, sold at prices no one can afford, not even those fortunate enough to still have access to money.
Even people who are not part of these gangs have started surrounding the few aid trucks that are allowed to enter. They grab whatever they can take – not because they are criminals but because they are starving and there is no other way to get food.
I spoke to a young man in Gaza City who goes at night to al-Rashid Street, Gaza’s coastal road and the main artery that aid travels along. Like most men here, he waits for trucks carrying food to enter to try their luck. “I saw them – the gang with rifles,” he said. “They stopped a truck and pulled the driver out. Beat him. Then they took everything. Later that night, the flour they stole was being sold in the market for 850 shekels (about $240) a sack.”
Cut off, and killed in silence
To make things worse, the Gaza Strip is now being cut off from the world and pushed out of sight. In mid-June, internet access, cellphone service, and even landlines across Gaza all but collapsed for five days because of Israeli strikes on telecommunications infrastructure and interference. In many areas, it hasn’t come back.
Even when we have connection, the outside world doesn’t seem to be aware of the crimes Israel is committing. When we are cut off, we feel another layer of abandonment, like we are being killed in total silence.
There are days when no one can reach each other. Ambulances can’t find patients. Families can’t warn each other about sniper positions. Journalists – those of us still breathing – are cut off mid-interview, mid-sentence.
While commentators now debate geopolitics, families here are being incinerated in their tents. But the world has looked away, and when the world looks away, Israel kills faster and more violently.
This communications blackout is not a glitch. It is strategic. It is the erasure of documentation, of testimony, of truth. As the world scrolls through headlines and Instagram reels, Gaza continues bleeding – off-screen.
The blackout also coincided with Israel launching a new war with Iran. While missiles flew toward Isfahan and attention shifted to Tel Aviv, who was still paying attention to the war crimes raining down on every inch of Gaza?
While commentators now debate geopolitics, families here are being incinerated in their tents. But the world has looked away, and when the world looks away, Israel kills faster and more violently. This war on us, the starvation and chaos, has not paused. It has only become less visible. The silence about Gaza is not peace or even a brief ceasefire. It is blood drying, unphotographed.
This is not an accident
Meanwhile, here in Gaza, children are dying not only from bullets but from hunger-related complications, infections, dehydration, and malnutrition. The UN says we are descending into famine. But if this isn’t famine already, what is?
A mother from Jabalia told me she feeds her children once every two days. When she has nothing, she just gives them water and salt. The water, of course, is contaminated, because that is all we have. Her children “sleep and wake up hungry”, she said. On the rare occasions she can afford a kilo of flour to make some bread, her kids can’t help but eat all of it in the same day – or even in an hour. They are too hungry to ration.
The so-called aid hubs of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that are supposed to feed us are death traps. More than 400 people have been killed and 1,000 wounded since they opened on 27 May while trying to get assistance. The most desperate civilians – displaced from their homes, living in tents, starving – risk their lives walking hours to reach them. When they arrive, they are often met by sniper fire, armed looters, or stampedes triggered by chaos and fear.
These are not accidents. They are deliberate killings. In Rafah, and other areas in the Strip, dozens of people – unarmed civilians, fathers, teenagers, children – have been shot in the back, head, or chest while trying to grab a sack of flour. Their corpses are often left in the street for hours, unreachable, because those who try to help risk being shot too.
What is happening is not a humanitarian failure. This is humanitarian theatre, staged for the international press, whose attention has now been diverted, while the reality is death – sanctioned, subsidised, and systematic.
How is it that in 2025, a father can be executed for trying to bring home bread to his family? How do we live in a world where the richest nations send “help” that kills – and then wash their hands clean of responsibility? How do you sleep knowing your taxes pay for the bullets that are killing my neighbours as they wait in line for rice? And what do we call this – if not genocide?
For us in Gaza, this is not just a war. It is annihilation.
Edited by Eric Reidy.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
