The Struggle To Control Post-War Gaza

Israel’s refusal to lift restrictions on the unfettered entry into Gaza of food, medical supplies and other desperately needed humanitarian goods is at the center of global attention.

What is important to recognize is that the actual struggle has less to do with a stand-alone starvation policy, and more with who controls distribution in the Gaza Strip.

It’s all about future rule

Both Israel and Hamas see control of aid distribution as a building block of who comes out on top once the guns fall silent in the Gaza strip.

The struggle for control explains the latest Israeli assault on Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and highlights the willingness of Israel and Hamas to sacrifice innocent Palestinian lives in the pursuit of their political goals.

UNRWA?

The struggle also frames the battle over the future of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the foremost humanitarian organization in Gaza.

While the United States seemingly backs Israeli efforts to shut it down, Gulf states are walking a tightrope on the issue.

Hospitals as command posts

Hamas makes no bones about Al-Shifa having served as a base for a commander of Gaza’s internal security force, Brigadier General Faiq al-Mabhouh, in the full knowledge that his presence risked an Israeli assault. Mr. Al-Mabhouh was killed during the attack on the hospital.

The Israeli military asserted that Mr. Al-Mabhouh had been “hiding in a compound at the Al-Shifa hospital from which he operated and advanced terrorist activity.”

Hamas, for its part, claimed he had been in charge of co-ordinating aid deliveries to northern Gaza with local clans, UNRWA and other international organizations.

Israel said Mr. Al-Mabhouh was among 170 “terrorists” it killed in the hospital and its immediate surroundings. Israel said it had captured a further 358 Palestinian fighters.

The importance of a police force

In contrast to Hamas military and political officials, who function from the group’s underground tunnels, Mr. Al-Mabhouh operated openly in uniform and spoke publicly about maintaining law and order in northern Gaza.

Israel killed Al-Mabhouh despite a U.S. request that it stop targeting the police force that escorts aid trucks on the Gazan side of the border. U.S. officials warned that a “total breakdown of law and order” was exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Another Mogadishu?

In February, U.S. officials said they feared Gaza was becoming another Mogadishu, the Somali capital long wracked by a security vacuum and desperation, in which armed gangs had a free run.

At the heart of the diverging U.S. and Israeli perceptions of the police force in Gaza are lessons learnt from the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The United States came to regret its decision to ban Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party and remove all senior Baathists from the government and security forces.

Cautious U.S. government

As a result, David Satterfield, the Biden Administration’s envoy for humanitarian affairs, conceded that the Gazan police “certainly include(s) Hamas elements.”

But he added they “also include individuals who don’t have a direct affiliation with Hamas who are there as part of the Palestinian Authority’s remnant presence and security.”

It is a distinction Israel refuses to make, driven by its determination to create a compliant post-war Palestinian Gazan administration.

Israel’s hopes

Israel sees the Gaza Strip’s clan and tribe-based gangs as the skeleton of a future subservient Gazan administration that could replace Hamas and create an alternative to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas’ internationally-backed Palestinian Authority.

In February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a post-war plan, entitled “Plan for the day after Hamas.” It envisioned Israeli security control and a Palestinian administration that “will be based on professionals with managerial experience. These local officials must not be identified with states or organizations that support terror and must not receive salaries from them.”

Israel’s errors

Israel’s targeting of the police has forced officers to venture out in plain clothes and unarmed, creating an opportunity for unidentified gunmen, believed to be clansmen, to take control of aid trucks.

The struggle between Israel, Hamas and the clans burst into the open earlier this month with reports of the death of Haj Saleh Ashur, a leader of the powerful Doghmush clan in northern Gaza suspected of looting aid convoys, and two of his associates.

Israeli sources suggested that Hamas killed the three men, noting that the clan had clashed with the Islamist group in the past. The clan said Mr. Ashur died in an Israeli strike last November.

The clans, the PLO and Hamas

In a statement after the leaking of Mr. Ashur’s death, several clans said they would only cooperate with institutions authorized by the Palestine Authority’s backbone, the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO, which they described as “the only representative of the Palestinian people.”

The Gaza-based clans demanded that “Hamas stops accusing us of treason and apostasy. Our nation can no longer bear the foreign concepts Hamas is trying to disseminate through its toxic media.”

Israel’s preference for the clans

Israel has recently sought to reinforce its preference for the clans by saying it would boycott UNRWA, and bar its aid supplies from entering northern Gaza, the hardest hit part of the Strip.

In January, Israel, on the warpath against UNRWA long before the Gaza war, charged that 12 of the organization’s 13,000 Gaza employees had participated in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Israel has yet to substantiate the claim, according to UN officials and officials of donor countries that initially suspended funding in response to the Israeli allegations.

The U.S. and UNRWA

Many of UNRWA’s donors that suspended funding, including the European Union, Scandinavian nations, EU member states, Canada and Australia, have since restored their support.

In contrast to U.S. allies, the U.S. Congress banned funding for UNRWA until March 2025. With an annual contribution of up to $400 million, the United States is UNRWA’s largest donor.

Gulf states walk a tightrope

Gulf states, reluctant to be sucked into Gaza unless there is a credible pathway to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, walk a tightrope.

Rather than rushing to UNRWA’s aid, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, together with the United States, the chief Israel-Hamas ceasefire mediators, have offered minimal assistance.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia pledged US$40 million. The UAE disbursed US$20 million it had promised UNRWA last year but hadn’t delivered, while Qatar said it would donate US$25 million for 2024.

Why does Israel oppose UNRWA?

At the core of Israel’s campaign against UNRWA is the assertion that the organization perpetuates the status as refugees of millions of Palestinians, most of whom were born after the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians and many after Israel’s conquest of Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.

In effect, Israel opposes UNRWA because it contributes to Palestinians’ national identity.