In Rafah, armed ‘vigilantes’ seek to enforce Hamas rule after IDF strikes on police
Member of ‘People’s Protection Committees,’ which were formed by Gaza’s rulers and other terror factions, says they ‘want to control the street… from all sources of trouble’
Heads turned as the masked men with clubs walked down a Rafah street, part of a public security group set up by armed factions in Gaza after the civil police force, controlled by the Palestinian terror group Hamas, went underground saying it was targeted by Israeli strikes in the ongoing war.
A group of nine of the men, their headbands reading “People’s Protection Committees” bound around ski masks or hoods, strode through a marketplace this week after first appearing around Rafah late last month.
“We want to control the street to ensure that there is still safety in the country… We are present in the streets to control the streets from all sources of trouble existing in the Palestinian street now,” one said.
The group was formed by the Hamas-run interior ministry, along with other political factions that had a street presence in Gaza, and was tasked with ensuring public order and stopping price hikes by market profiteers, he said.
Reuters was unable to reach a spokesperson for the ministry, which has stopped operating normally since the war began. Spokespeople for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and another terror group in Gaza did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
When the groups first appeared in markets, with some brandishing assault rifles, dozens of youths gathered around to whistle, clap and chant “God is Great” in support, witnesses said.
But while some Rafah residents appeared to welcome the emergence of the People’s Protection Committees to tackle lawlessness and war profiteers, others seemed worried at the idea of armed, masked men taking over policing.
“Maybe if we had real policemen without masks, people who are known to the people, it would be more organized and more comfortable,” said a father-of-four Reuters reached by phone in Rafah.
None of the people Reuters spoke to wanted to be identified by their full names. The PPC feared being identified by Israel or by the clans of profiteers whose goods they had seized, one person said. People backing the PPC were worried that Israel would see them as Hamas supporters.
Those who voiced concern about them were worried about angering the group, or the factions that support it, they said.
War erupted on October 7 when Hamas led a massive attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians amid horrific atrocities including widespread gang rape, torture, and mutilation of victims, some of whom were children. Thousands of attackers burst into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip and terrorists abducted 253 people of all ages who were taken as hostages in the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Israel responded with a military campaign to topple the Hamas regime, destroy the terror group and free the hostages over half of whom are still in captivity.
Profiteering
Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, including overall control over the civil police force, after seizing the territory from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup.
Officials from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, have said officers in the Hamas-run municipal police in Gaza have refused to escort aid convoys after a number of them were killed in Israeli strikes.
The conflict has led to intense shortages of all goods in Gaza, with Israel allowing only humanitarian aid into the enclave, trickling in at a far slower rate than food and medicine did before the conflict.
Israel, which checks all trucks entering Gaza from both Israel and Egypt, has blamed the United Nations for not delivering the aid fast enough after they are cleared, and for leading to a general fall-off in deliveries over the past month.
The UN has said it is becoming more difficult to distribute aid inside Gaza. The flow of aid from Egypt has almost dried up in the past two weeks, and a collapse in security has made it increasingly difficult to distribute the food that does get through, according to UN data and officials.
Prices have rocketed, infuriating a population in which almost everybody has already lost their home and now live, destitute, in tents or other temporary shelters with few possessions beyond the clothes they wear.
“The [Hamas-run] ministry of economy sets the price of every good which everyone should follow, including big traders even before smaller ones,” said one of the masked men.
They issue warnings to traders whose prices are too high and confiscate the goods of repeat offenders to sell at the set rate, he said.
“They are answering our call to protect us against high prices,” said Akram, a Rafah resident infuriated by the rampant inflation who had to quit smoking because a single cigarette cost what a whole packet had done previously.
The father of four in Rafah said he had initially welcomed the idea of PPC groups, but they had proven ineffective and were going after the wrong people, he said.
“They should focus their mission at the Rafah border crossing where the goods come in and they have to press senior merchants to bring down prices,” he said.
Market traders selling goods at a high price were often displaced people who had been forced to buy their goods at inflated prices from profiteers themselves, said another Rafah resident.
“Why can’t the economy ministry form groups to do these campaigns and inspect markets?” he said.
