Aid severe food shortages in Gaza, increasingly violent thefts by criminal gangs are now the main obstacle to distributing supplies in the south, aid workers and locals say.
They allege that armed men operate within plain sight of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a restricted zone by the border.
The BBC has learnt that Hamas – sensing an opportunity to regain its faltering control – has reactivated a special security force to combat theft and banditry.
After gangsters robbed nearly 100 UN lorries, injuring many of the Palestinian drivers, on 16 November – one of the worst single losses of aid during the war – a number of alleged looters were then killed in an ambush.
A notorious Gazan criminal family then blocked the main Salah al-Din Road leading from Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing point for two days last week.
Witnesses said iron barriers were erected and lorries trying to access the aid distribution point were fired at.
“Law and order have broken down in the area around the Kerem Shalom crossing, which remains the main entry point of goods, and gangs are filling the power vacuum,” says Sam Rose, deputy director of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza.
“It’s inevitable after 13 months of intense conflict – things fall apart.”
As the rainy winter weather begins, humanitarian officials say solving the worsening situation is critical to meet the huge, deepening needs of most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – now displaced to the centre and south.
“It is tactical, systematic, criminal looting,” says Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN’s humanitarian office, Ocha, in Gaza.
He says this is leading to “ultra-violence” in all directions – “from the looters towards the truckers, from the IDF towards the police, and from the police towards the looters”.
There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers early this year, citing their role in Hamas governance.
“Hamas’s security control dropped to under 20%,” the former head of Hamas police investigations told the BBC, adding: “We are working on a plan to restore control to 60% within a month.”
—BBC
