GAZA, (The Palestinian Information Center) The Gaza Center for Human Rights strongly condemned the actions of armed groups which operate in coordination with the Israeli occupation army and which kidnapped four staff members from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza City. The Center described these kidnappings as part of a series of similar abductions and assaults aimed at spreading chaos, dismantling the social fabric of Palestinian society, and ultimately erasing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Center said its field team documented that on Thursday morning, September 18, 2025, an armed gang intercepted four Health Ministry employees after they arrived at the Sheikh Radwan Clinic in northern Gaza City to evacuate equipment, under arrangements coordinated with Israeli authorities through relevant international bodies. The gang members tied the health workers’ hands, seized their mobile phones, abused them, and held them for several hours in an area under Israeli army control east of the city, before eventually releasing them.
The human rights organization stressed that this was not an isolated incident but part of a wider pattern in which the occupying power is forming local armed gangs to carry out security missions on its behalf.
Field investigations by the Center revealed that Israel is recruiting local individuals from Gaza into armed gangs, allowing them to remain in areas where the Israeli army is stationed particularly east of Rafah, east of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza City, and in the north of the Strip under the pressure of starvation, bombardment, and killings.
The Center noted that many of these gangs’ core members are former detainees who were imprisoned in Gaza for collaborating with Israel or for committing serious crimes such as murder, and were either released or escaped during the Israeli assault on Gaza. These gangs are reportedly supplied with weapons and training by the Israeli army, which uses them to perform proxy operations such as kidnapping individuals, conducting surveillance of homes and neighborhoods ahead of Israeli incursions, and looting aid trucks and homes.
The statement further accused these gangs of deliberately shooting at crowds of civilians gathered at aid distribution points or along truck routes, resulting in deaths and injuries, including among women and children.
The Center reminded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously acknowledged the creation of an armed gang known as the “Abu Shabab Gang,” which calls itself the “Popular Forces” and the “Palestinian Counter-Terror Unit,” tasked with carrying out combat missions inside Gaza.
The Gaza Center concluded that these armed gangs operate under the operational supervision of the Israeli army, receive logistical and weapons support, and enjoy protection as they carry out field missions that help impose control over neighborhoods and residents, including murders, violence, and kidnappings of civilians. It stressed that the Israeli state bears full responsibility for the crimes committed by these gangs, including the targeting and detention of medical staff, in violation of the principle of special protection for healthcare personnel.
It added that Israel’s recruitment, training, arming, and use of these local formations amounts to employing mercenaries by proxy, which does not absolve Israel of legal responsibility but rather reinforces and deepens it. Under international humanitarian law, the occupying power remains fully responsible for any actions committed in territories under its effective control, whether carried out by official forces or non-state actors acting with its authorization or consent, as is the case with these armed gangs.
Finally, the Center called on the international community, the United Nations, and relevant mechanisms to open an independent international investigation into Israel’s role in forming, arming, and funding these gangs, to ban their financing and supply by any entity or state, and to work toward dismantling them and holding those responsible accountable for the crimes committed.
