After attacking aid convoys and preventing traditional aid agencies from delivering food to starving Gazans, the Israeli army has begun distributing “Ramadan boxes” to residents of the besieged enclave, Israeli media reported on 4 March. The distributions are part of Israel's "influence operations" to reduce support for Hamas and create a new tribal governing system.
According to
Yedioth Ahronoth, these boxes include dates, oil, sugar, semolina, tea, and flour.
Israeli Army Radio reported that the military has been distributing the food boxes to residents and displaced Palestinians with a Quranic verse on the virtue of feeding the poor attached.
Senior Israeli military officials said this operation aims to drive a wedge between Hamas and the people of Gaza.
UNRWA and the World Food Programme (WFP) have been delivering aid to the besieged enclave since the war began on 7 October. But Israel carried out a propaganda campaign to cut international funding to UNRWA, and its military opened fire on WFP aid convoys, causing the organization to cease its deliveries for security reasons.
On 29 February, Israeli forces opened fire on desperate Gazans seeking sacks of flour from an aid convoy, killing over 100 of them. The Israeli military would not reveal which group operated the convoy.
According to
Arab World Press, the Israeli military has been reaching out to tribal leaders in Gaza to replace UNRWA and the WFP in overseeing aid deliveries.
Sources speaking with the Cairo-based news outlet said at least two of the well-known families in the Al-Sabra and Al-Zaytoun neighborhoods in the southwest and southeast of Gaza dealt in some way with Israeli civilian authorities.
One tribal leader stated,
"We are not ready to cooperate with the occupation on any issue whatsoever," but acknowledged forming tribal self-defense committees to prevent homes and property from being looted.
The food deliveries and tribal outreach come as Israel seeks
"to test the rule of local Gazan clans in the Gaza Strip after Hamas was destroyed," the
Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
"Israel aims to inundate the Gaza Strip with a primitive governance system, resembling tribal rule, where each neighborhood has its leader," Abdallah Sharsharah, a Gaza-based lawyer and human rights advocate,
told Middle East Eye (MEE).
"These leaders do not rely on popular will but on the strength of arms, as competing groups," he added.
"When the [army] detained figures like professors, elders, dignitaries, and influential personalities, especially from the northern parts of the strip, they asked exploratory questions to examine the extent to which these figures and the community in general would accept the idea of them directly managing humanitarian aid," Sharsharah told MEE.
"At that stage, we did not notice any field arrangements for this approach, but recently, with the occupation announcing its intention to hand over the administration of aid to some entities in the Zaitoun neighborhood … it became clear that something is being arranged on the ground."
Sharsharah believes by taking all these steps, Israel intends to create an alternative to both Hamas and UNRWA. The UN aid agency had also provided education and health care to Gazans.
"Historically, the occupation's cooperation with tribal figures in managing the Gaza Strip is not new. However, this time is different because the occupation realizes that these entities it cooperates with gain their power from being nothing more than organized gangs," Sharsharah explained.
Adel Mhanna, a resident of Gaza City, told MEE that Israel is seeking the collapse of law and order in Gaza to pave the way for a new governing structure subordinate to its interests.
"The north of Gaza has been living in a total state of chaos in terms of aid distribution and goods," the 34-year-old teacher said.
"The [Israeli] occupation has caused this state of chaos among the hungry residents and gangs who loot most of the aid," he added.
According to Mhanna,
"They are intentionally preventing the entry of aid into Gaza and hampering the work of UN organizations so they would create a total chaos there that would allow them to impose a new form of governance in the future."
Reports of a plan to have Gaza tribes handle civil affairs while Israel occupies the strip militarily emerged in January.
TRT World reported that according to Israel's public broadcaster KAN, the Israeli army had devised a plan to divide Gaza "
into regions and sub-regions, with Israel communicating separately with each group for matters including the distribution of humanitarian aid."
KAN reported the plan may also
extend to the occupied West Bank and recommends dividing the territories into
"emirates" with Israel retaining sole security control.
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