Anyone surprised by this animalistic behavior has not been paying attention: An orgy of looting and arson.

Hours after the IDF rolled out, vans bristling with masked gunmen and blaring martial music rolled into this abandoned settlement, passing donkey carts laden with loot and families picnicking on yellowing lawns.

OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel officially ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority on Monday evening, but by then the fate of Israel’s settlements had long been sealed. By early Monday morning, tens of thousands swarmed the settlements celebrating what leaders here called “a day of rebirth of the Gaza Strip.”

Students cut school, the terrorist groups carted out their homemade RPGs and prayed in the settlements’ smoldering synagogues, the poor scavenged the settlement carcasses, and the PA police and other security forces watched.

Looters torched synagogues and ripped what they could from what were considered the settlements’ sturdiest buildings.

And the high-tech greenhouses built by settlers, that provided employment and food for many Palestinians, are also being looted and destroyed.

The greenhouses, left behind by Israel as part of a deal brokered by international mediators, are a centerpiece of Palestinian plans for rebuilding Gaza after 38 years of Israeli occupation. The Palestinian Authority hopes the high-tech greenhouses will provide jobs and export income for Gaza’s shattered economy.

During a tour of Neveh Dekalim, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei implored Palestinians to leave the structures intact, even as people scavenged through debris elsewhere in the settlement.

“These greenhouses are for the Palestinian people,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to touch or harm anything that can be useful for our people.”

Just minutes away, crowds of looters in the Gadid settlement overwhelmed hundreds of guards trying to protect the greenhouses. Guards acknowledged that in many cases, they were unable to stop the looting.

“They are taking plastic sheeting, they are taking hoses, they are taking anything they can get their hands on,” said Hamza Judeh, a Palestinian policeman.