With Crime in Gaza Soaring, Israel Faces the Reality of Iraq-style Guerilla War - Middle East -
The "news" that, very soon, the Israel Defense Forces will move on to the third phase of the war in Gaza, in which it will withdraw most of its forces from the Gaza Strip and operations against Hamas will be carried out through raids, greatly worries Gaza's residents, aid organizations and the United States.
"They expect a scenario in which a reality similar to what happened in Iraq, when it was under the control of the U.S. forces, will develop in Gaza," a European diplomat familiar with the operations of aid organizations in Gaza told Haaretz. "Especially when there are no outside forces in Gaza, except for Hamas, to supervise internal security, public order and people's assets."
Examples are not lacking. In April, $120 million was stolen from the Bank of Palestine, which was deposited in steel safes at the bank's Rimal branch. The robbers behaved as if in a banal crime movie. A huge explosion ignited a fire in the central branch, hundreds of dollar and shekel bills flew through the air and immediately afterward, dozens of armed men entered the bank and gathered up the millions deposited there. That wasn't the only robbery that month – another one yielded the thieves $36 million.
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American troops at the scene of an IED explosion in Iraq, in 2003.Credit: AP
An internal document obtained by the Financial Times states that seven million dollars was stolen from ATMs by armed robbers who entered the bank building and ripped out and emptied the ATMs. The management of the bank, the largest in Gaza, hastily attempted to reassure people that the bank would not crash because of the theft and that billions of dollars were deposited at its branches in Gaza, but residents were not reassured. Anyone who could get to the few ATMs left in Gaza – only seven operational ATMs are estimated to remain in Gaza City – found that the long lines and crowds at the bank's branches had rendered withdrawals impossible.
People say that they are forced to bribed armed men just to get a place in line at an ATM or "earn" their protection after successfully withdrawing cash. The number of bills is dwindling, and not just because of the robberies. Israel does not allow shekels to enter Gaza for fear they will be transferred to Hamas. Although moneychangers hold dollars and Jordanian dinars, they charge huge fees for every transaction, "offsetting" 20-30 percent of the salaries paid to employees in cash – and they are considered the lucky ones who still receive any kind of salary.
Palestinians withdraw money from an ATM in Ramallah, this month.Credit: AFP
The shortage of cash and the huge difficulties in making bank transfers between bank branches in the West Bank and Gaza are just part of the immense economic problem in Gaza. The result is that, in recent months, a parallel economy is growing in which local gangs (not just Hamas members) are running the markets, collecting protection money, controlling food and goods warehouses, "regulating" the quantities of food that will be sold and setting prices. Everything is accomplished with weapons, using the threat of violence, of which there is a surfeit.
On social media, citizens report gang warfare over control of streets and neighborhoods, in addition to serious violence that sometimes includes murder over a sack of flour or aid package that someone was able to get his hands on and tried to take to his home or tent. This is a real war involving local gangs that existed before October 7. They have been joined by hundreds of criminals whom Hamas released at the start of the war for fear Israel would bomb the prisons.
This phenomenon is well known to anyone who followed developments in Iraq following its conquest by coalition forces in 2003. Shortly before the war, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein released about 30,000 criminal and security prisoners. They established street gangs, and the U.S. Army was unable to control them. It turns out that dismantling the Iraqi army and police as the first step in destroying the Baath infrastructure was a fatal mistake, the results of which are still seen today. The U.S. Army turned into a policing army and found itself at war with gangs even before it had to organize to fight a guerilla war initiated by the fired soldiers and policemen, some of whom established gangs to earn a livelihood before joining terrorist organizations.
Water distribution in Khan Yunis, on Monday.Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
Shortly afterward, the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), ambushes, car bombings, bombings of public buildings and large-scale attacks against American bases began. In Gaza, there are already lethal signs of the "Iraqi reality" in a format that may be even more violent. Vast quantities of humanitarian aid entered Iraq, at least in the first year of the occupation, with countries contributed billions to meet the urgent needs of the population, and dozens of foreign aid organization operated under military protection to provide critical services.
In Gaza, the term "humanitarian aid" is misleading. Vast quantities of goods that arrive from overseas, estimated at 6,000 tons, have laid in warehouses since June 9, and are not distributed because there is no agreed organization or entity that is prepared to do so due to fears for staffers' lives. The UN World Food Programme, whose staff are supposed to operate distribution lines of cargoes that arrive via the American's temporary pier, have announced a "temporary halt" of distribution, after two of its warehouses were struck by missiles.
Since last Wednesday, Israeli and American representatives jointly managing the "convoy management authority" – a special body established to examine ways to safely distribute humanitarian aid, and which sits in an army base bear Ashkelon – have been trying to find any solution to at least distribute food and medicine.
The UN Food Programme's aid distribution center in Deir al-Balah, this month.Credit: WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME/Reuters
Until March, "popular committees" of armed volunteers operated in Gaza to escort the convoys and try to protect the distribution centers, but after 70 of them were killed, they announced they were ceasing escort and protection operations. "The threat here is double," said one resident who participated in the security operations. "On the one hand, Israel shoots at everyone carrying a weapon, and on the other hand, we have to protect ourselves against armed gangs who have taken over the trucks en route to the warehouses, the warehouses themselves, or people who have already obtained food packages but have not reached a safe place."
Gazans who fled from the northern Strip to Rafah and then fled to Mawasi, told Al Jazeera, "Our survival now depends on mutual aid among the residents." But this mutual aid also appears to have limits. Residents cited violent disputes breaking out over the placement of a tent or other shelter, because of "wild behavior of children" and sometimes "because of jealousy after someone was able to get his hands on a food package," in the words of a resident who spoke with Al Arabiya.
In the face of a reality in which gangs and Hamas terrorist squads, who have switched to a guerrilla war in Iraqi and Syrian style, control 2.25 million people living with appalling, unceasing hunger and stress, Israel has no strategy or operating plan. In the best case, it will be forced to cooperate with armed family gangs, and in the realistic case, Hamas will return to control Gaza's civilian infrastructure.