Gaza aid restricted as Netanyahu admits to paying rival gangs

Despite the ceasefire agreement signed several weeks ago between Israel and Hamas, Tel Aviv is continuing to restrict aid to Gaza. At the same time, about 240 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed in daily Israeli military attacks on the coastal territory since the signing.

Furthermore, reports indicate that Israel purposely armed, financed and supported Gaza criminal gangs in looting aid while accusing Hamas of this.

Israel is still blocking most of the aid that was supposed to enter Gaza as agreed in the ceasefire deal, Al Jazeera reported. In total, since 10 October, 67 requests submitted by 27 local and international NGOs for the entry of more than 3,200 metric tonnes of relief materials have been denied on the grounds that the organisations were not authorised to bring these items into Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported at the end of October.

“Israel is still restricting aid to West Gaza, with an average of around 95 trucks entering per day during the first 20 days of the ceasefire — well below the 600 per day stipulated in the agreement between Israel and Hamas,” said Kenneth Roth, a former Human Rights Watch director.

Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the remains of Israeli captives, but Hamas says Israel had prevented excavation equipment and DNA medical kits from entering Gaza, The Guardian reported.

Extensive media coverage has been given to allegations that much of the aid was previously looted by Hamas. However, according to a number of reports, including by The Times of Israel and The New York Times, the Israeli military said there was no systematic looting by Hamas.

A USAid analysis also found no extensive theft by Hamas, Reuters reported. The analysis was conducted by a bureau in the US Agency for International Development and completed in late June. It examined 156 incidents of theft or loss of US-funded supplies reported by US aid partner organisations between October 2023 and May 2025, Reuters said.

‘No evidence’

UN World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain, the wife of the late pro-Israeli Republican senator John McCain, said there was no evidence Hamas was stealing aid, Sky News reported. Rather, there was systematic looting of aid by Gaza criminal gangs funded, armed and supported by Israel, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Israeli officials acknowledged supporting an armed group opposed to Hamas in Gaza after opposition lawmaker Avigdor Lieberman said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was arming “criminals and felons”, France 24, Sky News and Al Jazeera reported.

Netanyahu responded to Lieberman’s assertion, confirming that Israel was arming gangs opposed to Hamas’ rule, after several Israeli military officials stated they had been authorised to do this by the Israeli premier, the BBC reported. Netanyahu subsequently asked if there was anything wrong with this, before adding: “It only saves the lives of Israeli soldiers.”

However, several Israeli politicians accused Netanyahu of endangering Israeli security, adding that the guns could eventually be turned on Israel, CBS News reported.

Israel has been supporting several gangs in Gaza, but one of the better-known groups is led by Bedouin tribesman Yasser Abu Shabab. The ECFR think-tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks”, as well as being associated with the Islamic State (Isis).

Another Gaza gang supported by Israel is the Dughmush clan, which is also affiliated with Isis and was responsible for the kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston in 2007, the ECFR reported.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans the border between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Milshtein said some of the tribe’s members were involved in “all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling and things like that”. Abu Shabab had been imprisoned by the Israelis while his clan chiefs had denounced him as an Israeli “collaborator”.

“It seems that actually the Shabak [Israeli security agency] or the [military] thought it was a wonderful idea to turn this militia, gang actually, into a proxy, to give them weapons and money and shelter [from army operations],” added Milshtein.

Army spokesperson Brigadier-General Effie Defrin confirmed the military supported arming local militias in Gaza, but remained tight-lipped on the details, France 24 reported.

Israel also regularly struck Gaza policemen as they confronted gang members in an effort to protect aid trucks, Reuters reported, further hindering the distribution of aid.

Extortion

Sky News’ data and forensic team followed Abu Shabab and his men for months, tracking their movements, vehicles, weapons and identities. The gangs were also responsible for extorting protection fees from lorry drivers and blocking aid shipments in areas under Israel’s control in Rafah.

Sky News conducted an exclusive interview with one of Abu Shabab’s senior commanders and an Israel Defense Forces soldier serving on the Gaza border, who detailed how Israel was allowing them to smuggle cash, guns and cars into Gaza.

The investigation further found that his militia was receiving food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation despite the US-funded aid organisation’s declared impartiality.

The notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was accused of weaponising aid by human rights groups as well as the UN.

“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a non-governmental organisation created by Israel in February 2025 with US support, allegedly to distribute aid in Gaza, was an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in a serious breach of international law,” the UN experts said.

“The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices,” they added.

Experts say that Israel’s support for such groups is intended to “divide and conquer” and ensure that it maintains a level of control in Gaza, whatever its future, Sky News reported. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.