Gaza's war within a war as family clans, criminal gangs and other armed militias engage in gun battles on the streets... while Israeli strikes continue to pound the territory
Gaza is wracked with infighting and violence between Hamas and rival gangs as Palestinian factions compete for influence, power and access to sorely needed aid.
The embattled Strip has been reduced to a hellscape by Israel 's war, with the Israeli Defence Forces now in control of large swathes of Gazan territory.
Israeli tanks have opened fire on Gazans at aid points controlled by the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), allegedly killing hundreds of Palestinians in recent weeks, while Israeli warplanes continue pounding targets up and down the Strip.
This ongoing violence has only served to fuel a civil war within the territory as rival clans seek to eliminate competition and loot aid that they can sell on at premium prices.
The gangs are formed along tribal and family lines, and include some criminal elements freed from prisons in Gaza during the Israeli offensive, according to relief and transport workers.
But Israel has also admitted to supplying at least one Gazan militia, Yasser Abu Shabab's so-called Popular Forces, with weapons, effectively enlisting them to guard GHF checkpoints and loot other aid that would otherwise be taken by Hamas.
Earlier this month, the United Nations said that most of the limited aid it had been able to bring into Gaza after Israel lifted a months-long blockade had mostly been looted by armed gangs or taken by starving Palestinians.
The organisation had transported 4,600 metric tonnes of wheat flour into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, the only entry point Israel allows it to use, Deputy UN spokesperson Fahan Haq told reporters.
But 'most of it was taken by desperate, starving people before the supplies reached their destinations. In some cases, the supplies were looted by armed gangs,' Haq said.
The scale of the problem was brought into focus in November 2024 when UN officials warned that huge quantities of aid were being looted by mobs or stolen by gangs in Gaza.
In mid-November, a 109-truck convoy chartered by UN agencies came under attack.
Gunmen from several gangs surrounded the convoy and forced drivers to follow them to nearby compounds where they stole flour and food kits from 98 trucks, according to the UN's report.
Georgios Petropoulos, a coordinator at the UN's emergency-response arm, OCHA, said that aid agencies were unable to resolve the problem of lawlessness in Gaza by themselves.
'It's just gotten too big for humanitarians to solve,' he told reporters upon returning from Gaza.
That came after a tally compiled by UN relief agencies with charity organisations found in October that £7.5million worth of food and other goods – nearly a quarter of all the humanitarian aid sent to Gaza that month – was lost because of attacks and looting.
The problem has only intensified in recent months after Israel instituted an 11-week blockade on aid deliveries from March to May. It then dramatically curtailed the amount of aid the UN was allowed to bring into the territory in favour of GHF operations.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed what many observers had long alleged - that Israel had 'activated' clans in Gaza to oppose Hamas.
He didn't elaborate on how Israel is supporting them or what role Israel wants them to play, though he confirmed that Israel's forces are actively seeking to arm crime families in the Strip.
But critics have accused the Israeli government of arming clans to erode Hamas' influence and further destabilise civil society in Gaza.
Clans, tribes and extended families have strong sway in the Strip, with their leaders often stepping in to help mediate disputes. Some have long been armed to protect their group's interests, and some have morphed into gangs involved in smuggling drugs or running protection rackets.
After seizing power in 2007, Hamas clamped down on these groups.
But with Hamas' weakening power after 20 months of war with Israel, gangs have regained freedom to act.
Earlier this month, there were reports that the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis became the site of a fierce gun battle between Hamas and rival gangs.
And in April, a Hamas policeman was summarily executed by members of the Abu Samra clan after he allegedly shot dead a member of the Abu Samra family - one of the most influential families in central Gaza - at an aid distribution point.
As the infighting between Gazan gangs continues, so too does Israelis bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli strikes reportedly killed at least 60 people across Gaza today in some of the heaviest attacks in weeks as Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by US President Donald Trump.
A day after Trump called to 'Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back', Israel's strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Netanyahu's, was travelling to Washington for talks on Iran and Gaza, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter who spoke to AP.
Dermer was expected to begin meetings with Trump administration officials on Tuesday.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday to residents in large districts in the northern Gaza Strip, forcing a new wave of displacement.
Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in horrific surprise attacks.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
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