Gaza- “They stole our souls and destroyed our lives and lands,” Abu Muhammad repeats this phrase repeatedly as he claps hands, and he is horrified by the scene of destruction at the gas station that his family owns in Gaza, where the occupation army has wreaked theft, corruption, and destruction.
For days and weeks, Abu Muhammad and his family had been praying to God to preserve their station, their only source of livelihood. He told Tel Aviv Tribune Net: “We saved ourselves when the occupation army penetrated by land into the south of Gaza City, and we did not have time to take our car, our money, and our possessions.”
His shock was severe when he was able – for the first time – to return to the station after the occupation army retreated from its surroundings, leaving extensive damage to its facilities and equipment, which made it difficult for the family’s car to move around, which took side roads when escaping.
“Abu Muhammad” is the name that this Palestinian in his thirties chose for himself. He refused to talk at first out of fear for himself and his family from being targeted. He says: “Money is compensated, and we don’t lose our lives either.”
Theft and destruction
According to his account, the occupation soldiers invaded the station after it was targeted by artillery shells, opened fire, trampled everything in their path with their tank, and stole a large sum of money from an iron safe that he used to use for daily financial transactions.
Abu Muhammad confirms that the looted amount is large, due to the cessation of banks and his inability to transfer it to his bank account.
Gaza City and the areas of the northern Gaza Strip were the scene – according to documentation by the government media office and human rights organizations – of theft and looting of money and possessions from many homes and commercial establishments.
A journalist from the northern Gaza Strip told Tel Aviv Tribune Net – preferring to keep his name – that he lost coins and old heritage securities that he loved to collect and keep in his residential apartment in the town of Beit Lahia.
This journalist spends his time in a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, as he refused to move south. He adds: “The occupation army stormed my apartment, like many apartments and houses in the northern Gaza Strip, and when I returned to it after it retreated, I discovered the theft of antiquities.”
The occupation soldiers posted short video clips on social media platforms showing belongings they looted from inside homes in the Gaza Strip.
Among these videos, an Israeli soldier appears holding a musical instrument (guitar), while he is playing, and behind him appears the widespread destruction caused by the Israeli war machine. Many people interacted with this video, but the soldier did not respond to a frequently repeated question: “Where did you get this guitar?” Did you take him with you to the war?
“Soldier-thief”
This guitar belongs to the young artist Hamada Nasrallah, one of the founders of the “Soul Band” music group, who posted on his personal account on the Instagram platform a picture of himself holding the guitar in the left half, and in the other half of the picture, the “thief soldier” is holding the same instrument.
Hamada wrote a comment in English on this photo: “I was shocked today when I saw this video on TikTok of an Israeli occupation forces soldier playing the guitar amidst the rubble in Gaza. I know the guitar well, because there are not many guitars like this in Gaza.”
He added, “My father gave me this guitar 15 years ago. My father died shortly after the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, and now they have come to take the last thing I have from him.”
The young artist wonders: “Isn’t it enough that they take our loved ones, our homes, our families, and even our music and memories? What are the limits of injustice?”
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said that the occupation army unleashes its soldiers in Gaza to engage in immoral practices during house raids, including theft of property and looting.
The Observatory documented cases revealing the involvement of Israeli soldiers in systematic thefts of Palestinian funds and belongings, including gold, sums of money, mobile phones, and laptops, valued at tens of millions of dollars.
The forty-year-old Thabit Salim said – in his testimony to the Observatory – that the occupation forces looted all available money and gold when they arrested him and two of his sons (he was later released alone) from inside their house in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, and added that their value is estimated at more than 10 thousand dollars. Divided into several currencies, in addition to an almost identical amount of gold for his wife and the wife of his eldest son.
In a second testimony, Umm Muhammad Gharbiyya, a resident of the Shuja’iya neighborhood (east of Gaza City), says that the occupation soldiers forcibly took away her gold jewelry that she was wearing during the raid on her house and the arrest of her husband and eldest son in the middle of last month.
Systematic theft
The Observatory’s testimonies are consistent with what was published by the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on December 15, regarding the occupation army’s seizure of sums of money exceeding 5 million shekels (about 1.3 million dollars) under the pretext of controlling them from the “Spoils Unit” in the Technology and Logistics Division of the army.
According to Euro-Med, the announced amount may be a small part of acts of theft and looting that were not reported by the occupation soldiers, at a time when a video clip spread of 3 soldiers personally selling gold jewelry in a store in the West Bank after it was stolen from a house in Gaza.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, the head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, Rami Abdo, called for a comprehensive and impartial international investigation into the grave violations against residents in the Gaza Strip and their property by the occupation forces, which inflict destruction and harm on civilians without control or deterrence, and to take measures to ensure accountability and legal accountability.
In turn, the Director General of the Government Information Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the office monitored dozens of testimonies from Palestinians who were subjected to looting and theft, and the value of the stolen money and possessions is estimated at about 90 million shekels (about 24 million dollars) since the outbreak of the war.
According to Al-Thawabta, the occupation army used several methods of theft, such as looting the bags of displaced persons from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip through a military checkpoint it set up on Salah al-Din Street, and by robbing homes whose owners had abandoned them and were forcibly displaced from them.
In the West Bank, last week, occupation forces raided money exchange shops and seized their contents and sums of money exceeding 10 million Israeli shekels (about 2.7 million dollars), and quantities of jewelry and gold jewelry.
The Palestine Monetary Authority explained that the occupation forces stormed the headquarters of 6 exchange companies, all of which were subject to its control and supervision, arrested some of the owners of those companies, and seized sums of money from their safes after blowing them up.
Israeli Army Radio said that military units supported by bulldozers raided money exchange shops in the West Bank, which the Ministry of Defense classified as “terrorist,” according to its claim, and acknowledged the confiscation of about 10 million shekels from them.