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Hürriyet (Turkey) · 2025-07-12
Hürriyet, drawing on the AP, on how the power vacuum in Gaza has benefited gangs and cash brokers. Under the heading “like a mafia order”, Omar Shaban, director of PalThink, says the war makes it hard to know who is behind any economic activity — “you don’t know who brings cigarettes into Gaza” — and that traders probably run the cash brokerages and sell staples.
Hürriyet, drawing on the AP, on how the power vacuum in Gaza has benefited gangs and cash brokers. Under the heading “like a mafia order”, Omar Shaban, director of PalThink, says the war makes it hard to know who is behind any economic activity — “you don’t know who brings cigarettes into Gaza” — a…
Update Date: July 12, 2025 07:12
## Despite Israel’s attacks in the genocide that has continued for 21 months in the Gaza Strip, 2 million Palestinians trying to survive cannot escape the system established by broker gangs. People who are forced to pay a 40 percent commission to access cash cannot even obtain the most basic food items.
The authority vacuum that emerged in the Gaza Strip as a result of the destruction caused by ISRAEL and Hamas being weakened has benefited broker gangs. As nearly all bank branches and ATMs in the area have become unusable, people have become dependent on profiteering groups formed by cash intermediaries to meet their daily expenses. According to a report by the Associated Press (AP), commissions on transactions are running at around 40 percent; the report recalled that this figure was 5 percent at the beginning of the war.
‘WE ARE AT THE MERCY OF LOAN SHARKS’
After being displaced from Khan Younis, Mohammed Bashir al-Farra, who began living in southern Gaza, said, “If I need $60, I have to transfer $100.” Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school principal living in Gaza City in the center of the Strip, also said, “People are crying blood because of this. This commission is suffocating us, starving us.” Gaza residents, stressing that those holding large amounts of cash suddenly gained great power when the vast majority of banks closed in the first days of the war, emphasize that ordinary people have been left at the mercy of loan sharks.
According to World Bank data, in the area where inflation has increased by 230 percent and unemployment, which stood at 80 percent before the war, has peaked, people’s savings have dwindled while the cash shortage has further aggravated families’ financial hardship. At the start of the war, Israel halted the entry of cash into Gaza in order to restrict Hamas’s ability to buy weapons and pay its members. This, in the long term, made civilians’ access to cash more difficult. Many families are having to sell the gold they possess in order to buy flour and canned food. Gazans, stating that sugar is very expensive, say that a kilogram of sugar, which cost $2 before the war, now corresponds to $80-100.
Omar Shaban, Director of Strategic Research at the Gaza-based think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies, said the war has made it even harder to determine who is behind every kind of economic activity in the area. Shaban, stating that traders are probably the people running the cash brokerage and selling basic food items, said, “For example, you do not know who brings cigarettes into Gaza. It is just like a mafia system.” On the other hand, it is also reported that armed groups opposed to Hamas and linked to Israel have seized part of the aid sent to the area.
NEGOTIATIONS AND ATTACKS CONTINUE
- Ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel in Doha, the capital of Qatar, are continuing. According to information an official familiar with the talks gave to AFP, mediators are shuttling between the two sides to exchange ideas in order to maintain momentum toward an agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to Tel Aviv after completing his contacts in the United States, said yesterday in a statement to the American conservative news site Newsmax that the ceasefire agreement could be concluded within a few days. Meanwhile, at least 18 people, including children, were killed in attacks carried out yesterday by the Israeli army in different parts of the Gaza Strip. Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said Israel has turned Gaza into a graveyard for children and starving people.
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