Abu Shabab forces emerge as new militia in Gaza to challenge Hamas' control

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - JERUSALEM — A 300-member-strong Palestinian militia has emerged in Gaza, aiming to liberate the Strip from Hamas — and now it says it has the backing of Israel.

The group, calling itself the Popular Forces, operates in eastern Rafah under the leadership of Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin man in his thirties who spent years in Hamas detention for criminal activities before the 7 October attacks freed him from prison.

According to comments made exclusively to Euronews, Abu Shabab’s group — not to be confused with Somalia’s Islamist extremists, Al-Shabaab — first banded together in June 2024.

The Popular Forces, who also go by the moniker Anti-Terror Service, describe themselves as mere "volunteers from among the people" who protect humanitarian aid from "looting, corruption and organized theft" by Hamas-affiliated groups.

"We are not a substitute for the state, nor are we a party to any political conflict," the group said in a statement to Euronews. "We are not professional fighters ... as we do not engage in guerrilla warfare tactics."

Hamas has responded with direct assassinations against Popular Forces members, going on a show of force against potential rival organizations despite months of Israeli military strikes.

"Hamas has killed over 50 of our volunteers, including members of Commander Yasser's family, while we were guarding aid convoys," the Popular Forces spokesperson said.

Earlier, Hamas firmly rejected allegations of war profiteering and humanitarian aid theft, also levelled at them by Israel — something the Popular Forces insist is in fact still happening.

Meanwhile, Yasser Abu Shabab himself revealed his group is “coordinating” with the Israeli army in Rafah.

In an interview on Sunday with Israeli public broadcaster KAN’s Arabic-language radio, Abu Shabab said his group is cooperating with Israel on “support and assistance” but not “military actions,” which he explained were conducted solely by his group.

While the Popular Forces have since denied that Abu Shabab gave the interview to KAN altogether after coming under fire from critics in Gaza, the arrangement would represent Israel's latest attempt to cultivate local partners who might challenge Hamas’ control of the Strip.

A broader coalition, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), Egypt, the UAE and the US, is reportedly involved in seeking alternatives to Hamas rule.

But not everyone is convinced this strategy is bulletproof.

"These popular forces are a two-edged sword," Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Jerusalem's deputy mayor and Foreign Ministry special envoy, told Euronews.

"We're not talking about peace-loving democrats. We're talking about gangs who've had enough of the biggest gang of all, which is Hamas."

Although wary of Abu Shabab, Hassan-Nahoum also acknowledged Israel has little choice. "There were two Gazas," she explained. "There was the Gaza of Hamas ... and then there was the second Gaza of the disenfranchised people who weren't part of Hamas."

And some among the disenfranchised have simply reached a breaking point, Hassan-Nahoum said. "These gangs, I believe, have just gotten to the point where they feel that Hamas is weak, and obviously, they've created the biggest catastrophe for the Gaza Strip in history."

Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa, who transitioned from al-Qaeda affiliate leader and wanted terrorist under the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani to a legitimate political role as the country’s leader, was an example where the 180-degree turn could work despite skepticism, Hassan-Nahoum added.

"Al-Jolani in Syria was also running a gang (...) and look, he's stepping up. So you don't know who could step up out of these gangs."

Rami Abou Jamous, a Gaza-based journalist who previously worked for France 24 before establishing GazaPress, vehemently disagrees. According to him, Abu Shabab is no al-Sharaa — and in the context of the Strip, the militia leader’s claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

Despite his own strong critique of Hamas, Abou Jamous did not see the Popular Forces’ leader as viable or credible alternative.

“Imagine if Pablo Escobar became the president of Colombia. That’s exactly what this is: a drug trafficker collaborating with an occupying army against his own people,” Abou Jamous told Euronews.

Yasser Abu Shabab has long faced accusations by members of his own family — including one who was once part of his group — that he was involved in smuggling cigarettes and drugs from Egypt and Israel into Gaza through crossings and tunnels before the war.

He had been in prison on trafficking charges on 7 October, but was freed along with most other inmates when the war began in October 2023, an anonymous relative told international outlets.

While Abu Shabab now presents himself as a leader of an ever-growing cohort working in the interest of ordinary Palestinians, Abou Jamous contended that, “we shouldn’t really call them a ‘force’.”

“It’s a few dozen people from a clan called Asalamu Alaykum, originally involved in diverting humanitarian aid,” he explained.

“He claims to be protecting (aid) trucks or the UN, but that’s like someone filming in his own house and saying he’s protecting his dog — if the dog leaves, he can do nothing.”

“What he’s doing now is propaganda — a bubble created for international consumption,” Abou Jamous, who recently won three awards at the prestigious Bayeux Calvados-Normandie Prize for his reporting from Gaza, concluded.

Israeli military and intelligence veterans expressed sharp criticism of the strategy, which has previously created stronger adversaries.

Guy Aviad, a former IDF military historian and Hamas expert, pointed to Israel's support for Christian militias in Lebanon, which backfired and ended up with 18 years of Israeli military involvement in the country’s south.

"We helped them a lot against the PLO in Lebanon. But they dragged us into their own country," he told Euronews, describing the period from 1982 to 2000 as marked by "a lot of bloodshed in the Lebanon area."

Then there was Israel's tacit support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza during the 1980s, intended to counter the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — whose militant wing conducted acts of violence against the Israeli army and civilians at the time — but ultimately gave rise to Hamas itself.

"Israel thought at the time that the main adversary in the Gaza Strip was, of course, the PLO, so they tried to strengthen the force of the Muslim Brotherhood," Aviad explained. "But of course, in retrospect, we see that it was a huge mistake."

"I think the security services and also the Israeli government didn't know military history enough," Aviad said. "I think that the Abu Shabab gang in the southern Gaza Strip will not be a game-changer in the Israel-Hamas war."

Michael Milshtein, former director for Palestinian affairs in Israeli intelligence, was more direct. The Popular Forces represent "the gang of Abu Shabab clan" that was "involved in criminal cases, smuggling, robbing, every negative aspect" before 7 October, he told Euronews.

"I am very much a critic toward this policy or this move," Milshtein said. "We ignore the basic DNA, the basic nature of such a gang. You know, they are thieves."

Simply put, Israel is repeating the same mistakes yet again, he warned. "It seems to me that we learned nothing from history," Milshtein concluded.

In turn, some Israeli officials defended the arrangement as necessary given the absence of practical alternatives in Gaza.

Power vacuums inevitably get filled, Hassan-Nahoum argued. "I'm a big believer that there's never a vacuum of power," she said. "When one hole is created, somebody comes and fills it up. And this is what's happening."

And with Hamas’ aggressive approach backfiring, putting the group in Israeli gunsights, the gangs might be reconsidering their approach, she argued. "Let's try plan B, get along with Israel and maybe we'll be better off."

A former senior member of the Mossad’s counterterrorism unit, who spoke to Euronews under the condition of anonymity to avoid interfering with the Israeli government’s work, acknowledged the group's criminal nature but suggested support for them amounted to pragmatic necessity.

"They're not people I see as an alternative for long term in Gaza, I mean they are gangsters, but sometimes you have to work with gangsters to overthrow Hamas," they told Euronews.

Intelligence sources who spoke to Euronews described Israeli support as "a short-term tactical move," with these groups unable to serve as "a substitute for a long-term strategic plan."

Meanwhile, the ongoing humanitarian crisis, which has placed some 2 million Palestinians in peril of starvation, might turn into a key political, ideological and armed battleground in Gaza.

In recent weeks, further self-organised groups with no links to either Hamas or Abu Shabab have come forward in a bid to provide armed protection to aid deliveries in the Strip.

In late June, a group of Gaza's influential residents announced that they had initiated an independent effort to secure aid convoys from looting.

“We gather in this place to announce with a loud cry and a loud voice that these trucks that come to Gaza, the besieged city ... must reach families there and those in need,” the National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans and Families said in a video statement seen by Euronews.

“Do not be part of a group that is misled by the robbers and the smugglers. They are selling (aid) in the markets at high prices,” the group said.

“We must eradicate this evil phenomenon, and we must stop these smugglers from taking the trucks, and let the trucks go to the warehouses safely, until they are distributed to everyone, and each person takes their share,” they concluded.

However, these initiatives remain confined to pockets of the Strip, and whether they can challenge Hamas’ ironclad grip on Gaza remains dubious, experts say.

The Popular Forces’ 300 fighters alone represent a fraction of Gaza's population and lack the infrastructure to partake in its administration in any meaningful way, compared to Hamas’ well-organised and robust mechanism, which does not bode well for the likes of Abu Shabab.

"Hamas knows how to suppress popular uprisings or organisations that try to challenge them," Aviad said. "Hamas has a very sophisticated, very efficient security apparatus that knows how to find those who collaborated with Israel."

The biggest challenge any newcomer faces is winning over the hearts and minds of Palestinians, as Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, or nearly two decades.

"Most of the population knows only the Hamas movement. More than half of the population in the Gaza Strip is under 18," Aviad explained. "So, most of the population was educated by the Hamas system; that's what they are familiar with."

And Abu Shabab cooperating with Israel might prove counter-effective, as the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war has deepened anti-Israeli sentiment in the Strip.

"After a very, very bloody war in Gaza, there is not a single person in Gaza who hasn't lost someone in their family or friends," Aviad observed. "So, none of them are going to like the Israeli regime more."

And in Gaza, contenders have been hard to come by anyway. The Israeli government has rejected the Palestinian Authority — who remain the recognised political representatives of the occupied West Bank — return to the Strip, while no credible alternative has emerged.

"There are two main blocs in Palestinian society: the secular one, which is led by Fatah or the Palestinian Authority, and the religious one, ruled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Aviad concluded. "There is no third alternative."

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s influence has come into question even further, after a group of sheikhs in the West Bank announced over the weekend they are interested in declaring an emirate in Hebron and joining Israel’s Abraham Accords, in what they say is an attempt at finally reaching peace in the region.

In Gaza, the fundamental question remains whether supporting criminal gangs can provide a pathway to post-Hamas governance. "We want somebody to come and say, you know, we are the viable rulers,” Hassan-Nahoum explained.

“And on the other hand, if ideologically they're still on the same page as Hamas, then what did we achieve here?” — Euronews