Unreported: Hamas Is Preying on Grieving Families in Gaza and Charging Money for Burials
A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The PA’s official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, exposed how Hamas even exacts a price for death in Gaza, with its “mafia groups” demanding as much as 1,300 shekels (nearly $400) in bribes to allow bodies to be buried in cemeteries. Or, in the words of one Gazan, Hamas tells the people that “death is on us, the grave is on you.”
Headline: “In Gaza: Death is free, burial is 1,300 shekels!”
“Media figure Hazem Abu Hamid exposed a new catastrophe in the Gaza Strip: Mafias are asking the relatives of Martyrs for bribes to bury their sons, reaching 1,300 [Israeli] shekels [just under $400 – ed.] for a Martyr’s burial…
In a video he published on his Facebook page, Abu Hamid said: ‘I was walking near a cemetery in Gaza City when a young person stopped me and told me that one of his relatives died as a Martyr in an Israeli bombing, and that during the burial ceremony, people (he didn’t mention their identity) [parentheses in source] asked them for a sum of 1,300 shekels to allow the burial of their son in the cemetery.’ …
Abu Hamid demanded to stop this inhumane exploitation of the residents’ grief, as some of them were unable to bury their relatives in cemeteries and were forced to bury them in the streets and cover the graves with tin sheets…
Activist Abu Humam Al-Ma’am Jundiyeh directly blamed the Hamas Movement because it collects 500 shekels in the south [of Gaza] and 900 shekels (just under $250 – ed.) in the north [of Gaza] from the Martyr’s family for a grave. He mockingly said that ‘Hamas raises this banner: Death is on us, the grave is on you.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 29, 2025]
Although the PA’s damning reports about Hamas are made for political purposes, these internal Palestinian revelations nevertheless demonstrate how Hamas is robbing, abusing, and exploiting its own people, and even PA officials and journalists are being forced to speak in code just to survive long enough to report it.
While Israel is libeled daily as “starving Gaza,” the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself has also revealed that Hamas is the one systematically depriving the population of food and aid, terrorizing local businesses and institutions, and preying on grieving families for profit:
The [PA] presidential office expressed its opposition and sharp condemnation of the acts of looting and theft that gangs are committing in the warehouses of humanitarian aid that is being presented to our people in the Gaza Strip, foremost among them the Hamas gangs.
It emphasized that our Palestinian people will not forgive these gangs for their shameful crimes, which they are committing at its difficult time specifically in the Gaza Strip. The presidential office emphasized that all these gangs and those affiliated with them are known to our people, and that they will be at the top of the blacklist to hold them accountable and punish them by law at the appropriate time. [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 3, 2025]
This condemnation by the PA follows a report from a PA TV correspondent in Gaza who described how “organized and armed gangs” steal from “merchants and international [aid] institutions.”
The reporter in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, which is still controlled by armed Hamas terrorists, could not specify that the gangs were from Hamas, but he made sure to hint it by saying these gangs are “in quotes, ‘robbers’ or ‘thugs’ in quotes.” He even accompanied it with a hand motion of quotes to stress the point.
Official PA TV reporter in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza: “There are organized and armed gangs whose members are masked. They roam the streets and places where there are many sales stalls, stores, and warehouses, regardless of who owns these warehouses. Whether they belong to merchants or international institutions, everything now serves as a target for what is now called in Gaza, in quotes, ‘robbers’ or ‘thugs’ in quotes.”
[Official PA TV, Reporters in the Field, May 4, 2025]
The matching language between the reporter in Gaza and the PA’s presidential office — with the use of terms such as “gangs,” “theft,” “robbers,” and “known to our people” coupled with an explicit accusation by the PA — seemingly confirms that the reporter is referring to Hamas gangs.
This is an official PA admission.
The PA is saying that Hamas is sabotaging the flow of aid. For context, in the 43 days of the most recent hostage release deal, Israel allowed in 25,200 aid trucks carrying 447,538 tons of aid and has allowed in close to 2 million tons of aid over the course of the war so far, according to a COGAT report.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where a version of this article first appeared.
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