Abu Shabab back in spotlight as Israel's proxy in Gaza war

Netanyahu shifts focus back to enclave after ceasefire deal with Tehran

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  Displaced Gazans wait for aid as armed Palestinian groups claiming to be preventing theft gather around a UN vehicle accompanying aid lorries at the Israeli-controlled Zikim crossing west of Beit Lahia on Wednesday. Smoke from Israeli strikes rises in the background. AFP

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  The armed men guard aid lorries at the crossing. AFP

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  The armed groups sit on top of aid lorries. EPA

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  A UN vehicle accompanying the lorries. AFP

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  People carrying aid parcels the Israeli-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on the Salah Al Din road near the Nusseirat refugee camp on Wednesday. AFP

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  Palestinians gather at the GHF aid distribution point. AFP

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  Thousands of Palestinians queued at the GHF location on Wednesday. AFP

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  The supply of aid into Gaza has been acutely limited due to an Israeli blockade. AFP

As Israel's war with Iran is on hold, its main front has shifted back to Gaza, where it has started to work closely with the Abu Shabab gang.

Analysts and Israeli media claim the group comprises murderers, drug dealers and former ISIS members. Gaza residents and human rights groups have accused the Yasser Abu Shabab Popular Forces of crimes from looting of aid to firing at, kidnapping and beating Palestinians who seek it.

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed at aid distribution points by the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since its inception on May 27, including 93 by Israeli gunfire as they approached UN aid lorries, Thameen Al Kheetan, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement this week.

Former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel was arming a group of "criminals and felons" in Gaza.

Mohammad Shehada, Gaza analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the Abu Shabab group is doing Israel's "dirty work". In exchange for keeping its members out of prison providing them with weapons, Israel wants the group to carry out reconnaissance and intelligence work, Mr Shehada said.

"Before, they’d first send drones, then they’d send the sniffer dogs, then they’d send soldiers," he said. "Now they've changed the hierarchy by sending those gangs, and then the drones and then the dogs, and then the soldiers."

Dozens of people seeking aid at GHF sites have gone missing, failing to return home, their families have reported to rights groups and authorities in Gaza.

Prominent Palestinian investigative journalist Younis Tirawi has documented at least one instance of the Abu Shabab gang luring a civilian with the promise of aid before kidnapping and interrogating them.

Anti-Hamas

Following Mr Lieberman's claim, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move to support armed groups such as Abu Shabab aimed to "save the lives" of Israeli soldiers and oppose Hamas.

The Abu Shabab gang is being presented as an alternative to Hamas, but Palestinian and Israeli experts say that is simply not possible.

Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University's Moche Dayan Centre, said the gang could not match Hamas, whose influence is entrenched across Gaza.

"They cannot be an alternative to Hamas all over the Strip because their influence is very limited to the eastern part of Rafah – they don’t have an impact in Gaza city and Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, etc," Mr Milshtein told The National.

Similarly, Mr Shehada highlighted the disparity in the number of members in Hamas and Abu Shabab that disproves any claim that it could stand up to Hamas.

"Israel is trying to whitewash running those proxies by saying that they are creating them as rivals to Hamas, but that’s not what’s happening," he said. "They’re no match and cannot overpower Hamas’s 30,000 or 40,000 members."

Abu Shabab maintains it protecting aid rather than looting it, although an article in The New York Times cited the group's leader, Yasser Abu Shabab admitting to stealing aid.

"Yasser Abu Shabab cannot frame himself as the 'Robin Hood' of Gaza," Mr Milshtein said. The gang has a "problematic reputation" in Palestinian circles, which calls it "Jeish Lahd" – a reference to the Christian militia backed by Israel in southern Lebanon in the 1970s.

In fact, the Israeli support, as well as the group's own damaging actions, could lend credibility to Hamas rather than weaken it, Mr Shehada argued. "It lends credence to Hamas as defenders of Gaza ... and as the only thing standing between them and total societal collapse."

Mr Shehada has been analysing the group's members. "Virtually every name I’ve come across is either someone on the run from authorities for murder, collaborating with Israel, a drug dealer, or a member of ISIS."

At least two Abu Shabab members are known to have been affiliated with ISIS, Israeli media has reported.

One is Issam Nabahin, who Israeli news outlet Ynet claims launched attacks on the Egyptian army in Sinai as an ISIS member.

He was jailed by Hamas in Gaza but was released with other detainees after the war started on October 7, 2023, over fears that Israel would bomb prisons.

Laying siege

The deputy leader of the Yasser Abu Shabab Popular Forces is Ghassan Al Dheini, the brother of alleged ISIS member Walid Al Dheini – who was killed by Hamas – and who was reportedly involved in the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, Ynet reported.

Israel's relationship with the gang began after Israel took over the southern area of Rafah in May 2024, occupying and laying siege to it, Mr Milshtein said.

In internal memos, Mr Shehada said, the UN had identified Abu Shabab as stealing aid under Israeli military protection.

More publicly, Jonathan Whittall, who heads the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine, once again rejected claims by Israel that Hamas was diverting aid.

"This doesn't hold up to scrutiny," he stressed last month. Instead, Mr Whittall explained the theft is being carried out by "criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces", who were allowed to operate in proximity to the Karam Abu Salem border crossing, which leads into Rafah.

Mr Shehada said Israel had allowed armed groups to loot aid, even while stationed in near its soldiers.

“This allows Israel to externalise blame and say that they’re letting food in, that it is Hamas looting the aid and that the UN is not doing a good enough job to protect its own aid convoys.”

This atmosphere of insecurity has provided a pretext for the founding of the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), despite worldwide protest and condemnation of the move that sidelines the UN altogether. Besides the hundreds killed, thousands have been while seeking aid at the distribution points operated by the GHF and protected by private contractors and the Israeli army.

Another Israeli outlet, i24, interviewed Mr Al Dheini after claiming the Israeli army had intervened in protecting Abu Shabab against Hamas in an incident on Monday. He said the group will continue to target Hamas as the “only way to ensure the safety and security of people in the strip”. The gang aims to establish a “government" in Gaza’s south where it currently operates.

"Israel has been trying since October 7 to create proxies in Gaza to carry out Israel’s dirty tactics while giving Netanyahu plausible deniability for atrocities," Mr Shehada said.

But they could find very few collaborators. After failing with tribal and community leaders, businesspeople and company owners, they resorted to people on the run from authorities for crimes that could send them to jail when the war ends.

"So Netanyahu found a perfect match for himself. He and those gang leaders understand, if the war is over, they’ll end up in prison for drug dealing, ISIS membership, murders, theft, etc."