Gaza citizens set fire to the police station in West Rafah after a Hamas operative shot a civilian
On Sunday a Hamas police officer shot dead a Gazan youth who was part of a group of civilians who stopped an aid truck trying to deliver packages. The young man belongs to the Abu Burika family, a large clan in southern Rafah, which was asked to assist Hamas in guarding the aid packages until a member of the family was shot. Following the incident, the family threatened to take revenge, burning tires outside the police station in the city.
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"We call on the Hamas government to take responsibility for its actions. They told us to guarantee the entrance of the aid, but today they shot at us and a member of my family," said a member of the victim's family, during a protest outside the police station.
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Gaza citizens set fire to the police station in West Rafah after a Hamas operative shot a civilian
Last week, the Associated Press news agency published a dramatic video documenting the looting of an aid truck by crowds of Gazans in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the city to which hundreds of thousands of refugees fled due to the fighting. In the video, the crowd is seen chasing a truck carrying boxes of humanitarian equipment, after it apparently entered from the Rafah crossing. They run after the truck and some of them climb on the crates and start throwing them off. One of them is even seen waving his hands in the air, as a sign of victory. At some point, the truck is forced to stop, and many others run toward it to grab some of the loot as well. In a few minutes, all of the aid packages were looted.
The dramatic video came amid evidence of the hunger that the refugees are facing. According to the United Nations, about 85% of the population of the Strip, or some 1.9 million Palestinians, have been displaced from their homes, and the organization warns that many of them are having trouble finding enough food for themselves and their families. Similar video clips of truck robberies have already circulated in recent days, and others were filmed by armed men.
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Gaza citizens set fire to the police station in West Rafah after a Hamas operative shot a civilian
The IDF Spokesman in Arabic published on Tuesday a recording of a conversation between a Gaza resident and an intelligence officer, which illustrates the anger and frustration that many Gazans feel toward Hamas and its rule in the Strip. "Tell your leadership that Hamas has left Palestine, slaughter them, they are destroying us. They are out there, sitting in hotels."
"May God burn Hamas, may God curse them, dogs for dogs," the Gazan said in the recording. "They destroyed us, set us back 100 years. What is the fault of the children who came into the world?"
"When will you save us from them?" he asked the officer. "Why should we save you? Why didn't you save your lives from them?" replied the officer. The Gazan answered: "Because they killed us, yesterday they killed my cousin."