A Criminal Gang Could Ignite a Civil War in Gaza That Will Blow Up in Israel's Face

Israel assumes that the gang led by Yasser Abu Shabab will always be under its control as it arms it and indirectly funds it. However, bitter experience shows that such militias have their own dynamics, and obedience is not part of it

Zvi Bar'el

Jun 8, 2025

https://archive.is/nBqbA

"We have mobilized clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What's wrong with that?" Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday in response to reports that Israel is providing support to self-styled militias led by drug dealer Yasser Abu Shabab.

The prime minister, not by chance, confuses clans with criminal gangs. Using the term "clans" attaches an aroma of respectability to cooperation between the leaders of the Palestinians in Gaza and Israel against Hamas. From there, it's a short step to presenting the "clans" as part of a postwar plan for the Strip in which a local Palestinian government will replace not only Hamas but also the Palestinian Authority, which at the start of the war Israel defined as a terror-supporting entity if not a full-fledged terror organization.

But Abu Shabab's gang is neither a "clan" nor a representative of the Palestinian public in Gaza. It is worth mentioning that in March 2024, a so-called "coalition of families and clans of the southern districts of the Gaza Strip" said, in a blunt, emphatic statement that it was "willing to meet with international institutions that are not connected to governments that are subordinate to the Palestinian factions but rather only with those acting under the source of Palestinian authority, that is, the PLO [Mahmoud Abbas' Palestine Liberation Organization], the only representative of the Palestinian people."

"The occupation contacted several individuals from the prominent families by phone, and its request was denied," the coalition continued. "We praise the Najjar, Madhoun, Shawa, Araa, Astal and Hilles families, whose position is that the PLO is the sole representative of the Palestinian people and that Gaza is an inseparable part of Palestine."

Instead of clans or an institution of prominent Palestinian families, Israel arms Abu Shabab, who has crowned his gang an "Anti-Terror Service." That's how someone who had looted humanitarian aid convoys is put in charge of protecting humanitarian aid convoys, on behalf of Israel. And truly, "What's wrong with that?"

Israel wasn't the first to rely on criminal gangs and local militias to manage occupied territory. The United States recruited, funded and armed local tribal forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United Arab Emirates employed Colombian mercenaries in the war in Yemen. Bashar Assad established an entire army of gangs, the shabiha, which killed thousands of people during Syria's civil war. Iran funds Shi'ite militias in Iraq.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia funded armed militias that operated alongside Syria's new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, while Turkey sent Syrian militias it funded to fight in Libya, and it still relies on its "own" militias to control territory it conquered in the Kurdish regions of northern Syria.

But while militias sent to fight as mercenaries in other countries are not part of the political and social fabric of the country in which they fight, and end their activities when the state that sent them tells them to, local militias like those operating in Syria, Iraq or Gaza usually become a "parallel army" within the state, creating a state within a state.

The result is that these countries' official, recognized governments find themselves in a bloody struggle against the militias, which have become a powerful political force acting in their own economic and political interests at the expense of the state's political structure. In the case of Iraq and Syria, these local militias effectively control parts of these countries and threaten the citizens and the government.

If in the past these militias cooperated with the national army and even with the United States in wars against the Islamic State organization and were considered an essential legitimate auxiliary force, over the years, they have become a threat that spills over into the entire region, not just their home countries.

Israel, similarly, sees gangs like Abu Shabab's as a "support force" that will help protect the distribution of humanitarian aid, relieve the Israel Defense Forces of this burden and later perhaps even manage aid distribution and help to establish civilian governance mechanisms in the Strip.

But it paves the way for a dangerous development that will be similar to what happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Israel assumes that the militia will always be under its control as it arms it, provides it with revenue sources of income, and perhaps even funds it directly, creating a dependency that will ensure its unconditional obedience.

However, the bitter experience in Gaza (and beyond) teaches that such militias have their own dynamics, and obedience is not part of it. For example, the popular committees that emerged in Gaza after the second intifada shifted their loyalties among the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Like them, the large families in Gaza always made an effort to maintain good relations with all of the organizations and to appoint representatives from their ranks to each of them.

Hamas succeeded in breaking the resistance of most of the smaller organizations, either by force or by integrating them into its mechanisms, and mainly brutally neutralized the activities of the representatives of the Palestinian Authority. As the dominant military, economic and political force in the Strip, which also enjoys Israeli backing, it has received cooperation even from civilian organizations that opposed its ideology but were dependent on it for their livelihood and the maintenance of their businesses.

Now, an opportunity has seemingly arisen for those entities to step into the shoes of Hamas or at least compete for the space the organization vacates in the civil and military spheres. In this competition, "the Israeli agent," as Abu Shabab is referred to on social media in Gaza, might find itself in violent confrontations with other gangs, organizations, members of the popular committees, large and small families and, of course, with Hamas members. This is usually the stage where a bloody civil war might develop, with the victims being not sacks of flour and cans of cooking oil but innocent civilians, and the responsibility for this will fall on Israel.

It is not known how many people Abu Shabab has managed to recruit; estimates range from about 100 to 300 activists. In any case, this is a significantly smaller force than those of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organizations. This numerical disadvantage might push Abu Shabab to form coalitions with other armed groups, and there is no guarantee that he will not try to recruit members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The effort to accumulate power cannot be separated from the political and ideological context, in which Abu Shabab, the head of a criminal organization, will need to base his "legitimacy" on some national idea, shake off the image of a collaborator, change allegiances and finally also turn the weapons he received from Israel against it.

Israel dreams of creating the Gazan version of the South Lebanon Army, an ethnically mixed, Christian-dominated militia that worked alongside the Israel Defense Forces for almost 25 years. However, they might have forgotten that alongside the pro-Israeli faction, from the ashes of the civil war emerged Hezbollah.