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Looting has accompanied wars and violent conflicts throughout human history and was therefore explicitly prohibited under Articles 28 and 47 of the 1907 Hague Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949).

While looting shares common characteristics across conflicts, every place in which it occurs has its own particular circumstances. Understanding those circumstances is essential if the phenomenon is to be reduced, even if it can never be entirely eradicated.

In the Israeli context, one could argue that looting is rooted in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, the apartheid regime and the settlement project established in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. Yet while the phenomenon has always existed within the Israeli military, its scale has fluctuated over the years.

In The Lions’ Gate, former Israeli Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur’s account of the 1967 battle for Jerusalem through the experiences of paratroopers, looting by both soldiers and Israeli civilians is discussed openly. The book describes how Israeli civilians followed behind the advancing paratroopers, looting whatever they could carry from the Palestinian neighbourhoods that had been captured. The looters reportedly risked their lives, transporting stolen property through minefields separating East and West Jerusalem. One conclusion raised in the book is that the looting of 1967 was a direct consequence of the failure to address similar acts in 1948.

Many Palestinian families in the West Bank live in a cash-based economy. It is not uncommon for soldiers conducting searches of Palestinian homes or vehicles at checkpoints to........

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