Hamas cracks down on ‘organized' looting amid surge of thefts, attacks on police as deprivation spikes due to Israeli blockade
As starvation sets into Gaza following over eight weeks of Israel's total blockade on the strip, a spate of organized mass thefts has broken out over recent weeks.
Eyewitnesses described assaults across the strip, targeting bakeries, the food stocks of a hotel, a commercial mall and warehouses used by local and international food relief projects, with some observing simultaneous attacks launched by Israeli forces to target Hamas police working to restore security at the sites.
They told Mada Masr that the incidents triggered moments of broader social breakdown, as people in the area — many desperate to obtain food or medication amid severe deprivation — seized the opportunity to access scarce goods.
The collapse of social order following the incidents is part of Israel's intended effects of prolonging the blockade, creating conditions which it can leverage to introduce alternative supply and distribution lines under its exclusive control, according to Ahmed Tanany, a director of a research center based in Gaza who has been documenting the phenomenon. Israel has already put forward a proposal to control supply in recent days which was condemned by international aid organizations, who have described it as a violation of basic humanitarian principles.
The Interior Ministry in Gaza has responded firmly, with a ministry official and a Hamas member both telling Mada Masr that a curfew was imposed across the strip on Sunday and a special force deployed to pursue what they described as organized gangs.
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In eastern Gaza at the Movenpick Hotel, also known as the Mashtal, an eyewitness told Mada Masr that nearly 30 individuals carrying rifles and other types of weapons stormed the premises late one night over last weekend. They started firing shots everywhere, the eyewitness told Mada Masr, forcing the hotel's security personnel to surrender.
The eyewitness said the attackers stole food supplies from the hotel's warehouses that had been allocated for a soup kitchen run by the hotel's owner, Palestinian businessman Bashar al-Masry.
The robbery escalated when several displaced people sheltering in the neighborhood joined in. Amid the chaos, other parts of the hotel were broken into, with contents, cables and other items stolen and taken away, according to the eyewitness.
Another incident took place last week at a soup kitchen in Gaza City affiliated with the Qawafil al-Khair charity organization. Ahmed al-Nemnem, an eyewitness in the area, said that the perpetrators attacked the soup kitchen's warehouse and stole some food supplies, but workers and volunteers at the facility ultimately intervened to interrupt the assault and forced the group to withdraw, managing to safeguard the remaining supplies.
Hours later, however, Israeli aircraft launched two attacks on the soup kitchen, killing two of its workers and injuring dozens others.
In other looting incidents, Israeli aircraft were present before the robberies even started, according to eyewitnesses and residents of the area.
A group of people attempted to attack one of the largest malls in the east of Gaza City over the weekend, according to an eyewitness who lives in the area, who said the attack occurred at the same time as the Occupation was conducting intense air patrols in the vicinity.
But the mall was heavily guarded, they recalled, noting that its owner had enlisted a large number of security personnel, including family members, to protect the site. The perpetrators left, the source, who preferred to stay anonymous, said, describing them as shocked by the level of security.
But again, shortly afterward, Israeli aircraft launched an attack on the mall, killing and injuring many present at the scene. The original perpetrators returned to loot the whole facility in the aftermath. The source confirmed to Mada Masr that Israeli aircraft, namely drones, directly targeted police officers who were attempting to stop the robbery at the scene.
A similar series of events played out at two bakeries and several commercial shops also located in the east of Gaza City late Thursday and Friday night. Groups targeted the Families Bakery, affiliated with the World Food Programme, stealing its remaining stock of flour. They also robbed the Shanty Bakery and a number of nearby shops, shooting at security guards and injuring a number of them. Eyewitnesses said police intervened and pursued the looters but were targeted with airstrikes from Israeli forces.
The timing of the Israeli military attacks alongside the looting incidents is one of the reasons some believe the attacks may be coordinated or even supported by Israel.
'The groups seemed organized,' one eyewitness who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said, describing them as armed with what he referred to as 'modern weapons.'
The 'gangs' were carrying weapons estimated to be worth thousands of dollars, the official at Gaza's Interior Ministry said on condition of anonymity, citing this as evidence that the attacks were coordinated rather than spontaneous. Many members of the ministry have been injured or killed in the violence, whether by armed individuals conducting the thefts or by Israel's simultaneous bombing.
Other incidents of theft have prompted more spontaneous moments of social breakdown.
A report by Al-Ayyam, whose editor-in-chief is affiliated with Fatah, described thousands of people gathering at the warehouses of several humanitarian organizations over the weekend. The perpetrators are motivated by hunger, according to the report, and are mainly displaced people attempting to secure basic food necessities amid the alarming shortage of supplies. Flour was reportedly the main commodity stolen during these incidents.
Similar conditions were described by the United Nations Relieve and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which stated on Wednesday that its staff were safely evacuated after thousands of Palestinians broke into its field office in Gaza City to take medications.
A senior emergency officer at the agency called the looting'the direct result of unbearable and prolonged deprivation.'
No food, fuel or any other supplies have entered Gaza since March 2, when Israel abandoned the prisoner exchange outlined in the ceasefire deal and imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining Israeli prisoners.
In March, medics recorded tens of thousands of cases of anemia and malnutrition, while 53 people — mostly children — have died of disease or medical complications linked to malnutrition.
Food prices have skyrocketed 1400 percent in Gaza since March, according to the World Food Programme, which announced it has completely run out of food stocks. Thousands of people line up daily at local charity kitchens working to try and distribute food to those in need.
Regardless of the degree of coordination of the looting, Tanany, who heads the Orouba Center for Research and Strategic Studies, says that they are not isolated incidents.
Tanany also documented similar incidents during a period of extreme social unrest earlier in the war, describing the phenomenon as part of Israel's broader strategy.
By tightening the siege and drying up resources, Israel aims to create security and social vacuums that would later justify its direct intervention in managing aid and civilian affairs in Gaza, he says.
During a surge of similar incidents that took place between the end of 2023 and the first few months of 2024, Occupation forces repeatedly targeted members of the Hamas police, opening up a security vacuum into which different entities entered and began to compete over control of aid delivery and distribution in the strip.
At the time, groups of families, often armed with light weapons, carried out robberies that targeted stocks of food and relief supplies.
Palestinian factions, clans and families began coordinating with Hamas security officials to restore social order across the strip, forming what they called popular committees. At the same time, rival groups emerged, likewise made up of clans, private companies or political parties alternative to Hamas, some of which were supported by Israel in its efforts to weaken Hamas's influence and gain a stake in controlling the delivery of humanitarian aid.
A spate of Israeli attacks simultaneously targeted Hamas police officials directly involved in securing the delivery and distribution of goods.
Speaking about the resurgence of similar dynamics amid the ongoing blockade — the longest Gaza's civilians have endured since Israel launched its genocidal war in 2023 — Tanany explains that the Occupation's primary objective is to dismantle the social fabric and instill fear and insecurity throughout the strip.
The goal, he adds, is to erode public trust in existing institutions, prompting people to seek 'individual salvation,' even if it means accepting deceptive options presented by the Israeli government as 'safe.'
In reality, he concludes, these alternatives are functional administrative bodies designed to serve the interests of the Occupation.
Israel announced on Monday that its Cabinet has approved a plan for the military to fully seize Gaza, forcibly displacing the entire population into the southern part of the strip.
Israeli authorities have also presented a new plan to control the delivery of humanitarian aid using private security companies along with humanitarian organizations in the strip. The aid would be distributed in specified areas and would require Palestinians to undergo screenings to prevent Hamas from accessing the goods. Only 60 trucks would be inspected and allowed in each day, including essential food and household supplies. These would later be distributed at six designated centers in southern Gaza.
Shortly after the announcement, the United Nations, along with other aid groups operating in the strip, rejected the new proposal in a joint statement saying it endangers the lives of civilians and requires their forced displacement, the organizations said, refusing to cooperate with the arrangement.
Gaza's government media office also rejected Israel's plan, which it described as an 'entrenchment of the siege and a starvation policy' rather than a mechanism for distributing aid, adding that Israel is using humanitarian assistance as a tool of military and political pressure.
Gaza's Interior Ministry also issued a statement over the weekend, condemning the actions of what it called 'agents' of the Israeli occupation looting and stealing goods.
Those perpetrating such incidents, the ministry said, are taking advantage of the Occupation's 'intense targeting' of police and security forces and working to spread chaos and terror in several areas of the strip by targeting public and private properties.
The ministry official who spoke to Mada Masr said that its new field force is working to pursue the attackers and enforcing a 9 pm curfew until the strip is 'cleansed from these gangs.'
The Hamas source said anyone captured by the special force and proven to have collaborated with Israeli forces will be punished according to 'revolutionary law,' with punishments that can include execution.
Police officers have already opened fire on those proven to be involved in the thefts, he noted, adding that executions may also be carried out against anyone who is found to have harmed or killed civilians during the robberies.
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