As Israel seeks to excise Hamas from Gaza, it’s empowering militias led by the Palestinian group’s enemies, assisting and providing them with military support in an attempt to present them as an alternative to Hamas’s rule in the enclave.
The policy appears to date back to late last year, when Israel targeted local police forces in Gaza, justifying such attacks by saying that any government entity in Gaza is affiliated with Hamas; the result was chaos in parts of the Strip.
In the ensuing security vacuum, a 32-year-old Palestinian tribesman named Yaser Abu Shabab emerged with some 100 of his clansmen to control aid routes near the Kerem Shalom crossing, a critically important aid conduit at the Gaza-Israel boundary.
Aid organizations accuse groups like Abu Shabab’s of looting aid convoys, having ties to extremist groups and exacerbating famine in Gaza.
Read more: For the first time, the world’s food crises authority announces a famine in Gaza
In May, Jonathan Whitall, then director of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories, said in a news briefing that “criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces,” have been “allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom border crossing.”
A month later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged his government, following the advice of security officials, had “activated” clans in Gaza to work against Hamas.
“What’s bad about it?” he said in a video statement. “It’s only good and it only saves the lives of Israel Defense Force soldiers.”
Abu Shabab has since styled his group into the so-called “Popular Forces.” Soon after Netanyahu’s address, Abu Shabab released a statement of his own denying receiving any arms from Israel. But other posts touting the group’s security and aid operations show him working in areas under the full control of the Israeli military, and reports from Israeli media say he has received Kalashnikov rifles from the military.
Abu Shabab’s group may have been the first to make itself known in Gaza, but other militias have since cropped up, activists say, operating in various parts of the Strip in concert with the Israeli military.
Read more: Hamas agrees to return hostages but resists other parts of Trump’s peace plan
One of the more prominent examples is led by Hussam Al-Astal, 50, a former officer in the Palestinian Authority’s security service who was accused by colleagues in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas of collaborating with Israel in the 1990s and of assassinating a high-ranking Hamas official in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
His group, which calls itself “The Strike Force Against Terror,” has cemented its control over Qizan Al-Najjar, a village south of Rafah, which Astal describes as a haven for those opposed to Hamas.
“Today in my area, we have no war,” Astal said in a phone interview Friday, adding that others are expected to come and that anyone entering the area was vetted for ties to Hamas.
“If you come here, you’ll see children playing. We have water, electricity, safety.”
Smoke rises from buildings following heavy Israeli attacks as Palestinians continue to flee northern Gaza toward the south. (Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Astal made his comments the same day Hamas announced that it will accept parts of the Trump administration plan to end the war which began when Hamas forces invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas agreed to release hostages and largely give up its governing role in Gaza, which it has controlled since 2007.
In a video posted in September, Al-Astal promises to pay $50 dollars to anyone who kills a Hamas fighter.
“Every Hamas member I will personally throw in the trash heap. Hamas’s rule is ending,” he says.
On Friday, Al-Astal’s group was involved in one of the bloodiest instances of intra-Palestinian fighting in the enclave, when a Hamas unit attacked a neighborhood in Khan Yunis in a bid to arrest members of a prominent clan accused of collaborating with Israel.
In the ensuing firefight, five clansmen were killed, local sources say. Al-Astal said his forces assisted in fighting Hamas “using our special methods.” He did not elaborate on what those methods were, but the Israeli military released footage later on Friday showing it targeting Hamas militants it said were attacking a neighborhood in Khan Yunis; it said in a later that it killed 20 gunmen.
Reports on social media said 11 Hamas members were killed, and their bodies were dragged through the streets of Khan Yunis. One video taken by local activists and posted on the messaging app Telegram shows the camera lingering over bloodied corpses lined side-by-side on the ground.
Palestinians continue to flee to the southern regions with their belongings following Israeli airstrikes and ground assaults in Gaza Strip on Oct. 3. (Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images)
It wouldn’t be the first time Israel has tried to create alternative governance structures in Palestinian communities. Between 1978 and 1984, it formed the Villages League, which aimed to dismantle the influence of the Palestine Liberation Organization by relying on prominent Palestinians, giving them incentives in return for their cooperation as a more pliant authority. The initiative failed.
Around the same time, Israel empowered Palestinian Islamist groups including Hamas, hoping they would serve as a counterweight to the PLO and leftist, secular Palestinian factions that were prominent at the time.
Being seen as cooperating with Israel remains a black mark in Palestinian society. The families of both Abu Shabab and Al-Astal issued statements disowning them.
Al-Astal refused being characterized as a traitor, saying family members, including his sister, were killed by Israeli bombs. But he makes no secret of what he called coordination with the Israeli military, from whom he has received water, food and military equipment.
“Hamas says I’m a traitor because I coordinate with Israel,” he said.
“What do you think I’m coordinating? How to evacuate someone who is sick; how to provide food, water and services.”
Read more: Inside an airlift to Gaza. Dropping aid from above and the desperate scramble below
Not all clans have been receptive to Israel’s overtures.
Last month, said Nizar Dughmush, the head of a prominent tribe in Gaza City, he was contacted by a militiaman who claimed he was an intermediary from the Israeli military.
“He said the Israelis wanted us to take charge of a humanitarian zone in Gaza City, that we should recruit as many of our family members as we could, and they would provide logistical support, like arms, food and shelter,” Dughmush said.
But Dughmush refused their offer, saying his family were civilians, and that though they were not affiliated with Hamas, they had no interest in being “tools of the occupation.”
Two days later, Dughmush said, Israeli warplanes began pounding the tribe’s neighborhood, killing more than 100 members of his clan. Dughmush claims Israeli forces entered the neighborhood 48 hours later and systematically destroyed every house.
“All of this is vengeance against us because we refused to cooperate,” he said. Two other clans, Dayri and Bakr, were approached in a similar fashion and had their areas attacked after rejecting Israel’s offer.
“I’m talking to you now as a displaced person, along with what’s left of my clan, all of us spread out in different parts of Gaza,” Dughmush said.
Al-Astal, who considers himself a longtime foe of Hamas, is unapologetic in his choices, which he sees as essential in a post-Hamas Gaza.
“There’s no place for Hamas here,” he said.
“We’re the new administration, and we’re the future.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
