The real reason why Israel is arming gangs in Gaza

The Israeli government is intentionally creating chaos in Gaza to justify its colonial rule.

For months, Israel and its defenders have insisted that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid. They used that claim to justify the starvation of two million people in Gaza – to bomb bakeries, block food convoys and shoot desperate Palestinians waiting in bread lines. We were told this was a war on Hamas and ordinary Palestinians were just caught in the middle.

Now we know the truth: Israel has been arming and protecting criminal gangs in Gaza that engage in stealing humanitarian aid and terrorising civilians. One group led by Yasser Abu Shabab, which is reportedly linked to extremist networks and has engaged in a variety of criminal activities, is directly receiving weapons from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

And Netanyahu is proudly admitting to it. “What’s wrong with that?” he said when confronted. “It saves the lives of [Israeli] soldiers.”

What’s wrong? Everything.

This isn’t just a tactical decision – it’s an admission of true intent. Israel never wanted to protect Palestinian civilians. It wants to break them. Starve them. Turn them against each other. Then blame them for the resulting chaos and suffering.

This strategy isn’t new. It’s colonialism 101: create anarchy, and then use it as proof that the colonised cannot govern themselves. In Gaza, Israel isn’t just trying to defeat Hamas. It’s trying to destroy any future in which Palestinians might govern their own society.

For months, Western media repeated the unverified claim that Hamas was stealing aid. No evidence was shown. The United Nations repeatedly said there was no proof. But it didn’t matter. The story served its purpose – it justified the blockade. It made starvation look like a security tactic. It made collective punishment look like policy.

Now the truth is out. The gangs terrorising aid routes were the ones Israel supported. The myth has collapsed. And yet where is the outrage?

Where are the stern statements from the governments of the United States and United Kingdom – the same ones who claimed to care about humanitarian delivery? Instead, we are getting silence. Or worse – a shrug.

Netanyahu’s open admission isn’t just arrogance. It’s confidence. He knows he can say the quiet part out loud. He knows Israel can violate international law, arm criminal gangs, bomb schools, starve civilians – and still be welcomed on the world stage. Still receive weapons. Still be praised as an “ally”.

This is what total impunity looks like.

And this is the cost of believing Israel’s PR machine – of letting it pose as a reluctant occupier, a humane military, a victim of circumstance. In truth, it’s a regime that doesn’t just tolerate war crimes – it engineers them, funds them and then uses them as propaganda.

It’s not just a war on Palestinian bodies, homes or even survival. It’s a war on the Palestinian dream – the dream of ever having a state, of building a future with dignity and self-determination.

For decades, Israel has systematically worked to prevent any form of cohesive Palestinian leadership. In the 1980s, it quietly encouraged the rise of Hamas as a religious and social counterweight to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The idea was simple: divide Palestinian politics, weaken the national movement and fragment any push for statehood.

Israeli officials believed that supporting Islamist organisations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza would create internal conflict among Palestinians – and it did. Tensions between Islamist and secular groups grew and resulted in clashes on university campuses and in the political arena.

Israel’s policy wasn’t driven by a misunderstanding. It was strategic. It knew that empowering rivals to the PLO would fracture Palestinian unity. The goal wasn’t peace – it was paralysis.

That same strategy continues today – not just in Gaza but in the occupied West Bank too. The Israeli government is actively dismantling the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) ability to function. It withholds tax revenues that make up the majority of the PA’s budget, bringing it to the brink of collapse.

It protects settler militias attacking Palestinian villages. It conducts daily military raids in PA-administered cities, humiliating its forces and making them look powerless. It blocks international diplomatic efforts by the PA while mocking its legitimacy.

And this policy doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the occupied territory. Inside Israel, Palestinian citizens face a similar tactic: intentional neglect, impoverishment and engineered chaos. Crime is left to spiral out of control in their communities while infrastructure and services are underfunded. Their economic potential is stifled – not by accident, but by design. It’s a quiet war on Palestinian identity itself: a strategy of erasure that aims to turn Palestinians into a silent, faceless minority stripped of rights, recognition and nationhood.

By engineering instability and then pointing to that instability as proof of failure, Israel writes the script and blames us for living it.

This is not just military policy – it’s narrative warfare. It’s about ensuring that the Palestinian people are forever seen not as a nation striving for freedom but as a threat to be contained.

Israel thrives on chaos because chaos discredits Palestinian agency. It allows Israel to say, “Look, they can’t govern themselves. They only understand violence. They need us.”

It’s not just brutal. It’s deeply calculated.

But Gaza and the West Bank are not a failed state. They are places that have been systematically denied the chance to become one.

Gaza is my home. It’s where I grew up. It’s where my family still clings to life. They deserve better – better than a colonial regime that bombs them, starves them and funds the very people stealing their food.

The world must stop treating Gaza and the West Bank as testing grounds for military doctrine, propaganda and geopolitical indifference. The people of Palestine are not a failed experiment. They are a besieged people, relentlessly denied sovereignty. And still, they try – to feed their children, bury their dead and remain human in the face of dehumanisation.

If Netanyahu’s government can admit to arming criminal gangs and still face no consequences, then the problem is not just Israel. It is us – the so-called international community that rewards cruelty and punishes survival.

What’s needed – urgently – are concrete actions to protect Palestinian lives and safeguard the right to Palestinian statehood before it is erased entirely. Threats to recognise a Palestinian state just won’t do.

If the world continues to look away, it’s not only Palestine that will be destroyed – it’s the very credibility of international law, human rights and every moral principle we claim to stand for.

Discontent with federal policies has sparked separatist sentiments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. On Monday, Probe Research released a poll showing that 22% of Manitoba residents would vote in favor of separating from Canada if an independence referendum were held.

Conducted with interviews of 1,000 people and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, the survey indicates that up to 70% would vote to remain in Canada. It also reveals that support for separation is strongest in rural areas and among conservative voters.

The results reflect a similar trend in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In these western Canadian provinces, separatist sentiment has grown in recent years, particularly among conservatives frustrated with federal government policies.

That frustration intensified after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party won the April 28 election, causing disappointment among conservatives who have been out of power since 2015.

Currently, Alberta — one of Canada’s wealthiest provinces and the source of 84% of the country’s oil production — is the epicenter of the separatist movement. A poll published in late May indicated that 30% of Alberta residents support independence, up four points from 2021.

In fact, Alberta now shows significantly stronger support for separatism than Quebec did when it held independence referendums in 1980 and 1995. This sentiment is growing amid accusations that the federal government is sacrificing Alberta’s prosperity in favor of Ontario and Quebec.

Alberta’s separatist movement plans to hold a referendum in 2026. In May, it unveiled the proposed question for the vote: “Do you agree that the province should become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada?”

The proposal gained momentum after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, a conservative, moved to lower the requirements for holding referendums and announced she would not oppose its organization. Ahead of the April 28 election, Smith voiced her opposition to a potential Liberal victory and has since justified the western provinces’ frustration following Carney’s win.

Progressive politicians deal a severe blow to President Milei’s party. On Sunday, Peronist candidates won in local elections in the province of Formosa and the city of Rosario, pushing President Javier Milei’s Freedom Advances party into a distant third place.

The results of these provincial elections may be seen as a prelude to the upcoming national legislative elections in October, when Argentina’s far-right will attempt to counter a resurgent Peronist movement, currently undergoing a process of reorganization following former President Cristina Fernandez’s placement under house arrest.

In Santa Fe, voters chose mayors, city council members and local leaders in 365 municipalities. In that province, “United to Change Santa Fe” — a coalition led by Gov. Maximiliano Pullaro’s Radical Civic Union (UCR) — won in 17 of the 19 major cities.

Another surprise came in Rosario, one of the province’s largest cities, where Peronist candidate Juan Monteverde claimed victory with 30.6% of the vote, beating far-right contender Juan Aleart, who received 28.8%. This marks the first Peronist win in Rosario in more than 50 years.

“The only way to save this democracy we have is to participate more and generate projects that try to represent the majority, even knowing that we are different. Because there is a social majority in Rosario, Santa Fe, and Argentina that does not agree with what is happening.”

“Today, the people of Rosario defeated the president, the governor and the mayor,” Monteverde said. “They voted without fear, against the political machines, and they won because there is a social majority that is struggling and disagrees with what is happening. But it lacked a political force to represent it. In Rosario, that force has now emerged.”

Freedom Advances won in just 2 out of 365 districts, securing 34 city council seats. Despite the modest results, Karina Milei — the president’s sister and secretary of the presidency — celebrated the outcome with fanfare.

In Formosa, Peronist Gov. Gildo Insfran cemented his dominance with more than 67% of the vote. His next goal is to push for a constitutional reform that would allow him to run for re-election in 2027. The far-right Freedom Advances party garnered just 11% of the vote.

From her residence in Buenos Aires, Cristina Fernandez spoke with the two Peronist leaders to congratulate them on their victories. “A few minutes ago, I spoke with my comrade, Gov. Gildo Insfran, to congratulate him on the excellent results for Peronism in the election of constitutional convention delegates and provincial lawmakers,” she posted on social media.

Argentina is currently in the midst of a marathon of staggered provincial elections throughout 2025. On Oct. 26, Argentines will vote to renew half of the country’s legislature by electing 24 senators and 127 representatives.