Armed gangs, including Hamas-backed groups, have plundered at least $120mn from banks in northern Gaza in just the past two months, according to UN estimates, as the war-ravaged strip suffers from a severe cash crunch.
The thefts amounted to at least a third of the cash stored in stranded vaults, according to mid-May estimates seen by the Financial Times. About $240mn more is sealed in bank vaults in northern Gaza, some entombed in concrete to try to prevent looting following the collapse of civil order in the besieged enclave.
The robberies have fueled concerns among Israeli officials that some of the funds could further fuel Hamas’s insurgency as the militant group gains control of scarce banknotes in the besieged enclave’s closed wartime economy.
The conflict and Israeli restrictions on the movement of cash and armoured cars have limited the availability of physical money. Residents must pay a fee a week in advance to even join the queue for a cash machine in central Gaza, one of a tiny handful of functioning machines left for the strip’s more than 2mn people.
The thefts came as Gazans, most of whom live in poverty, struggle to find banknotes to buy essential supplies as inflation spirals following eight months of war.
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