Societal breakdown in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war
During the Gaza war, societal and institutional breakdown occurred across the Gaza Strip caused by continual military assaults by the Israel Defense Forces on Palestinian law enforcement institutions as well as widespread starvation, famine, and lack of essential supplies created by the conflict and blockade of the Gaza Strip. Due to significant destabilization caused by military conflict and the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis, the United Nations reported in July 2024 that significant increases in looting, killing of law enforcement and humanitarian workers expanded across the Gaza Strip, and were emblematic of greater societal breakdown and spreading "anarchy" throughout the enclave.
Furthermore, with the Hamas government losing control over most of Gaza as the war progressed, a variety of armed groups emerged, with at least some being backed by Israel. +972 Magazine described Gaza as undergoing an "engineered disintegration — one in which Israel actively cultivates Gaza's collapse by empowering criminal militias, fragmenting authority, and dismantling every pillar of Palestinian social infrastructure." Following the October 2025 ceasefire, which involved an IDF withdrawal from roughly half of Gaza, internal violence escalated as Hamas began efforts to reassert control over its portion of the territory.
According to an October 2025 report by ACLED, more than 220 intra-Palestinian violent incidents have occurred since October 2023, resulting in the deaths of around 400 Palestinians. Furthermore, the report states that looting of aid, theft, and violent activity by gangs, clans, and armed groups have become widespread, and that 70% of these incidents have occurred after Israel broke the 2025 ceasefire with its attacks in March.
Background
Following the October 7 attacks, Israel announced on 9 October that it was blocking the entry of food into Gaza. The blockage, according to the Israeli government, is aimed to neutralize Hamas as a security threat, including preventing military resources from being smuggled under the guise of humanitarian aid. Because Gaza was already mostly reliant on food aid, the repercussions were felt immediately.In late June 2024 a leaked UN document said that 95% of the population of Gaza were in food insecurity, while almost 500,000 were facing near-famine hunger. The report found famine remained a possibility throughout the entirety of the Gaza Strip, and that the risk was "as high" as at any other time during the conflict. The UN stated one in five households went entire days without eating.
Conflict and humanitarian researchers stated that the collapse of Gazan social order was a deliberate consequence of Israeli military destabilization to force life to be "unbearable" for its citizens.
Societal breakdown
On 19 June 2024 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported the expansion and escalation of "anarchy" throughout the Gaza Strip as a result of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, leading to documented "rampant looting, unlawful killings and shootings" of "local police and humanitarian workers". The head of the agency's Gaza and West Bank Ajith Sunghay stated that the significant increase in lawlessness was a result of "Israel's dismantling of local capacity to maintain public order and safety in Gaza". The agency further reported on multiple instances of "mob justice, extortion of money, family disputes, random shootings, fighting for space and resources", and "youths armed with sticks manning barricades".Looting of aid
The blockade and resulting lack of essential goods resulted in several instances of desperate citizens looting aid trucks. Many large families armed themselves with light weapons to facilitate raids on humanitarian convoys, blocking law enforcement from preventing looting. The lack of formal police protection led to many humanitarian truck drivers signing informal deals with armed citizens to protect their cargo from looting.In December 2023 several knife-wielding masked individuals raided a UNRWA flour distribution site at the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, causing police to shoot at and kill one of the attackers. The victim's family blocked streets and set tires on fire in Rafah in retaliation, before attacking the UNRWA flour distribution site and a police station.
In February 2024 The Wall Street Journal reported that lawlessness in Gaza was hindering aid efforts. Axios reported that armed gangs have been attacking and looting aid trucks since Hamas police have quit due to Israeli attacks. A Palestine Red Crescent Society spokesman stated that the civil disorder "contributed to around a 50 percent decrease in the total number of aid trucks entering Gaza in February" and an Egyptian aid truck driver described people climbing and smashing aid trucks. In the middle of February, a Bedouin boy was shot during a confrontation where several citizens raided an aid truck to take its cargo. Dozens of the boy's family members retaliated by storming the Rafah Border Crossing courtyard and setting car tires on fire.
Several countries including the United States initiated airdrops of humanitarian aid and food to mitigate famine, which resulted in several confrontations between desperate citizens trying to gather aid from the boxes in addition to several fatal injuries caused by falling aid boxes. Salama Marouf, the head of Gaza's media office, characterized the air drops as "humiliating and demeaning".
In June 2024 The New York Times reported that relief groups had stopped delivering aid to southern Gaza due to looting and attacks from armed gangs, with aid trucks being peppered by bullet holes on supply routes. Both commercial and aid agencies decided that they could not risk employees' lives. One aid worker described the daily attacks from armed criminal gangs in the Israel-Gaza border area as being coordinated and organized. The worker said that sometimes the aid truck drivers were beaten. AP News spoke with an UN official who described thousands of aid trucks piled up, armed groups regularly obstructing convoys, and drivers being held at gunpoint. A worker at a Palestinian trucking company said that aid was spoiling in the hot weather. To try to make up for the aid deficiency, Israel allowed more commercial trucks into Gaza from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which unlike UN convoys, usually travel with armed protection. One Gazan businessman said that in the past he paid thousands of dollars to other Gazans to protect his trucks. An Al-Azhar University associate professor of political science said the lawlessness resulted from increasing desperation and the resulting power vacuum left from Hamas' decreasing power over Gaza.
In late June the UN warned that it would suspend aid operations in Gaza unless Israel increased efforts to protect humanitarian workers. A State Department spokesman said that in June, looting and other criminal attacks were the largest barriers to delivering aid, rather than Israeli strikes or Hamas' commandeering of aid convoys. In July, the UN said that they would be bringing in more personal safety equipment and armored vehicles following approval from Israeli officials.
On 16 November 2024, the Popular Forces carried out an attack on aid convoys at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, described by UNRWA as one of the worst instances of looting during the war.
Looting of banks
In June 2024, the UN estimated that armed gangs, have stolen over $120 million from northern Gaza banks in two months.Law enforcement
Due to persistent attacks on law enforcement by Israeli troops, the majority of Gaza's police force stopped wearing uniforms to avoid being targeted, leading to greater instances of lawlessness due to the apparent lack of police presence in many areas.Anti-Hamas armed groups
Various armed factions have emerged to challenge Hamas amidst a widespread societal collapse and power vacuum. As of 30 September, up to a dozen new armed groups opposed to Hamas have emerged in Gaza.In the days leading up to the October 2025 ceasefire, Palestinians linked to anti-Hamas armed groups reportedly began fearing persecution ahead of the withdrawal of Israeli troops. According to Israel Hayom, some Israeli intelligence officers advocated limited evacuation for "high-risk collaborators", but the army command blocked the idea, arguing that any organised extraction could inflame local anger and create political fallout.
The total strength of Israeli-backed anti-Hamas Palestinian militias in the Gaza strip is estimated to be around 3,000 total fighters across the entire strip.
Popular Forces
The Popular Forces, founded by Yasser Abu Shabab, is an Israeli-backed group that operates in the southern Gaza Strip. They presently control eastern Rafah, have freedom of movement throughout the wider Israeli-controlled Rafah area, and have expanded into Khan Yunis.The group is also allegedly linked to the Islamic State ; this has been claimed by members of the Israeli opposition as well as by Hamas. Popular Forces commanders Issam al-Nabahin and Ghassan al-Dahini were formerly in the Sinai Province branch of IS and the Gazan IS affiliate Jaysh al-Islam, respectively.
Abu Shabab has described his group's operations as a humanitarian project, saying that "hundreds of families" are evacuating to areas under Popular Forces control daily to escape "war and famine".
The Popular Forces first emerged in May 2024 at the beginning of Israel's Rafah offensive. They have been responsible for the Kerem Shalom aid convoy looting and allegedly participated in massacres of civilians during aid distributions by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.