[News] Targeting the police and protecting thieves: Israel’s efforts to spread chaos in the Gaza Strip

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Targeting the police and protecting thieves: Israel’s efforts to spread
chaos in the Gaza Strip

Saturday 4-January-2025 -
https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/01/04/331659/
<https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/01/04/331659/#>
<https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/01/04/331659/#>
<https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/01/04/331659/#>
<https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/01/04/331659/#>
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GAZA, (PIC)

Among the qualitative objectives of the Israeli occupation in its ongoing
aggression against the Gaza Strip for the past 15 months is to spread chaos
and security breakdown in all areas and cities. This is achieved through
the direct targeting of Palestinian security forces on one hand, and by
supporting criminal gangs that rob humanitarian aid on the other. In this
way, Israel seeks to replace security and stability with chaos, coinciding
with its daily massacres and the blockade and starvation of all residents
of the Strip.

The commander of the police in Gaza, Major General Mahmoud Salah Abu Salah,
and his deputy, Major General Hossam Mustafa Shahwan, were martyred due to
an Israeli bombing of tents for displaced citizens in the Mawasi of Khan
Yunis in the besieged Strip On Thursday. This was part of an Israeli crime
that resulted in the deaths of 11 martyrs, including women and children, in
addition to 15 injured.

According to information gathered by the Palestinian Center for Human
Rights in Khan Yunis, at 1:15 AM on Thursday, January 2, 2025, the
occupation’s planes attacked the tents of displaced persons with no less
than five missiles in two areas approximately 200 meters apart in the Ihsan
camp in the Attar area, southwest of the Mawasi of Khan Yunis, leading to
the deaths of Major General Mahmoud Salah and his assistant, Major General
Hossam Shahwan.


*Attempt to spread chaos*The Ministry of Interior and National Security in
Gaza announced the assassination of Abu Salah and Shahwan on Thursday
morning while “they were performing their humanitarian and national duty in
serving our Palestinian people amid the catastrophic conditions caused by
the Israeli aggression, which also led to the martyrdom of several citizens
due to the airstrike.”

The statement said: “Major General Mahmoud Salah ascends as a martyr in the
field of serving our people, crowning his life with the medal of martyrdom
after 30 years of work in the Palestinian police force since its
establishment, moving through various responsibilities until reaching his
role as head of the police for the past six years.”

For its part, the Government Media Office (GMO) in the Gaza Strip confirmed
that the escalation of the Israeli occupation’s targeting of security
forces and aid security personnel in the Strip is part of a clear plan
aimed at creating an administrative and governmental vacuum, spreading
chaos and security breakdown in the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to undermine
the resilience of the people and destabilize them.

The GMO said that the number of martyrs among aid security personnel has
risen to 736, reflecting the scale of the crimes committed by the
occupation army, which targets anyone trying to provide assistance and
relief to those affected in Gaza, emphasizing that they continue to serve
the Palestinian people and will not retreat from performing their national
duty. “We will continue to confront all attempts by the occupation to
create chaos, breakdown, and destabilize security in Gaza.”


*A war crime*The Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemned in the
strongest terms the crime of assassinating martyrs Abu Salah and Shahwan,
affirming that the continued targeting of elements and leadership of the
civil police by the occupying forces during the ongoing genocide against
Gaza for nearly 15 months, at the orders of the highest political and
military levels, aims to instill chaos, spread organized crime, exacerbate
humanitarian suffering, and undermine any effort to achieve even the
minimum level of security, which is an integral part of the crime of
genocide.

Lawyer Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights,
said, “The blue police (civil) and its leadership are part of the civil
institutions, and attacking them is a war crime. In the context of the
genocide being perpetrated by Israel, the goal of targeting the police is
to plant and spread comprehensive chaos, insecurity, and the spread of
theft amidst famine, poverty, and displacement, allowing the law of the
jungle to prevail and pushing people to emigrate from the Gaza Strip.”


*Resistance committees mourn the martyrs*The Resistance Committees in
Palestine mourned the martyrs Salah and Shahwan, saying that they “ascended
on the path to Jerusalem due to a cowardly Zionist assassination operation
carried out by enemy planes on the tents of displaced persons in the Mawasi
of Khan Yunis,” praising the role of martyr Abu Salah and his honorable
journey, saying he “greatly contributed to building the Palestinian police
force according to a Palestinian national doctrine and protecting the
resistance’s back.”

The Resistance Committees added in a statement that the martyr Major
General Abu Salah established the foundations of security, stability, and
community and civil peace despite limited resources, persecution,
assassinations, and repeated targeting of the police force and its
personnel.

They noted that the assassination of Salah and Shahwan and the targeting of
the Palestinian civil police, which has not stopped throughout the
aggression and genocide in Gaza, aims solely to spread chaos and destroy
the national and community fabric and civil peace to impose malicious
Zionist agendas and plans in Gaza, asserting that “despite the
assassinations, persecution, and targeting of the police force, it will
remain the strong shield, the fortified fortress, and the original support
for our people and their valiant resistance.”


*Protecting thieves*While the occupation army targets the leadership and
elements of the Palestinian security forces responsible for maintaining
security and establishing order in the Strip, criminal gangs occasionally
emerge, exploiting the difficult living conditions of the population amid
the genocide. They engage in stealing humanitarian aid, which represents
the only lifeline for the people of the Strip due to the starvation and
blockade policies imposed on them since the war began.

In areas near the Israeli security fence east of the Gaza Strip, adjacent
to places where occupation forces intrude, these gangs take shelter to cut
off humanitarian aid routes and seize it, contributing to the famine
suffered by the southern part of the Strip, where the highest population
density is concentrated, as well as the besieged northern part.


*Organized crime*This crisis has deepened with the emergence of gangs
practicing “organized crime”; the occupation has contributed to their
formation and spread by targeting security teams made up of security and
tribal elements to protect the aid, creating a vacuum that allowed them to
expand and commit their crimes without fear.

The notorious reputation of this dangerous gang has spread in southern
Gaza, and Gazans agree that they and the occupation are “two sides of the
same coin,” sharing in “increasing their suffering and torment.” In
previous statements by the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in the Gaza
Strip, it confirmed that it had monitored communications between these
gangs and the occupation to direct their tasks and provide them with
security cover from Israeli internal security officers (Shin Bet).

The GMO announced that these gangs have caused the martyrdom of a large
number of police and security team members who risk their lives to protect
aid trucks.

Hamas and security, factional, and community circles in Gaza accuse these
gangs of being linked and collaborating with the occupation for their
mutual benefit of theft and creating chaos while destabilizing security and
stability on the home front.
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