How Israel is pitting Palestinian clans in Gaza against Hamas

Jerusalem – While Israel seeks to increase Hamas in Gaza, it is empowering militias led by the enemies of the Palestinian group, by helping them and providing them with military support in order to present them as an alternative to the reign of Hamas in the enclave.

Politics seem to date back to the end of last year, when Israel has targeted local police forces in Gaza, justifying such attacks saying that any government entity in Gaza is affiliated in Hamas; The result was chaos in certain parts of the band.

In the safety vacuum cleaner that followed, a 32-year-old Palestinian tribe named Yaser Abu Shabab emerged with a hundred clans to control the aid routes near the Kerem Shalom Crossing, an extremely important aid conduit on the limit of Gaza-Israel.

Help organizations accuse groups like Abu Shabab to loot convoys of help, with links with extremist groups and exacerbation of famine in Gaza.

In May, Jonathan Whitall, then director of the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied territories, said in a press briefing that “criminal gangs, under the supervision of Israeli forces”, were “authorized to operate near the border crossing of Kerem Shalom”.

A month later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognized that his government, following the advice of security officials, had “activated” the Gaza clans to work against Hamas.

“What’s bad about it?” He said in a video press release. “It’s good and it only saves the lives of the soldiers of the Israeli defense forces.”

Abu Shabab has since stylized his group in the so-called “popular forces”. Shortly after Netanyahu’s address, Abu Shabab published a declaration of his own refusal to receive weapons from Israel. But other positions praising the group’s security and assistance operations show him to work in the fields under the total control of the Israeli army, and Israeli media reports say he has received Kalachnikov rifles from the army.

Abu Shabab’s group may have been the first to make itself known in Gaza, but other militias have since appeared, according to activists, operating in various parts of the concert band with the Israeli army.

One of the most important examples is led by Hussam Al-Aastal, 50, a former officer of the Palestinian Authority Security Service who was accused by colleagues from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas of collaborating with Israel in the 1990s and of assassinating a high-ranking Hamas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

His group, which is called “the striking force against terrorism”, cemented its control over Qizan al-Najjar, a village south of Rafah, which Astal describes as a paradise for those who oppose Hamas.

“Today in my region, we have no war,” said Astal during a telephone interview on Friday, adding that others should come and that anyone entering the region has been checked for links with Hamas.

“If you come here, you will see the children playing. We have water, electricity, safety. ”

The smoke rises buildings after strong Israeli attacks while the Palestinians continue to flee northern Gaza to the south.

(Khames Alrefi / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Astal made its comments on the same day, Hamas announced that it would accept parts of the Trump administration plan to end the war that started when Hamas forces invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas agreed to release hostages and largely abandon its guiding role in Gaza, which it has checked since 2007.

In a video published in September, Al-Astal promises to pay $ 50 to anyone who kills a Hamas fighter.

“Each member of the Hamas that I will personally throw in the trash. The Hamas rule ends, ”he says.

Friday, the group of al-Astal was involved in one of the bloodiest cases of intra-Palestinian fighting in the enclave, when a Hamas unit attacked a district of Khan Yunis in order to arrest the members of a prominent clan accused of collaboration with Israel.

During the leak that followed, five men from clan were killed, according to local sources. Al-Astal said his forces helped fight Hamas “using our special methods.” He did not explain these methods, but the Israeli army published images later on Friday, showing that he was aiming for Hamas activists who, according to him, attacked a neighborhood in Khan Yunis; He later said that he killed 20 armed men.

Reports on social networks have indicated that 11 members of Hamas had been killed and that their bodies were dragged in the streets of Khan Yunis. A video taken by local activists and published on the Telegram messaging application shows the camera that lingers on bloody corpses bordered by side on the ground.

The Palestinians continue to flee to the southern regions with their property after Israeli air strikes and ground assaults in the Gaza Strip on October 3.

(Saeed Mmt Jaras / Anadolu via Getty Images)

It would not be the first time that Israel has been trying to create alternative governance structures in Palestinian communities. Between 1978 and 1984, he formed the League of Villages, which aimed to dismantle the influence of the organization of liberation of Palestine by relying on eminent Palestinians, which gave them incentives in exchange for their cooperation as a more flexible authority. The initiative failed.

Above the same time, Israel empowered Palestinian Islamist groups, including Hamas, hoping that they would serve as a counterweight to the OLP and the Laïc and Laïc Palestinian factions which were prominent at the time.

Being considered cooperating with Israel remains a black brand in Palestinian society. The families of Abu Shabab and Al-Astal have published declarations for them.

Al-Astal refused to be characterized as a traitor, saying that family members, including his sister, were killed by Israeli bombs. But he does not hide what he called coordination with the Israeli army, of which he received water, food and military equipment.

“Hamas says I am a traitor because I coordinate with Israel,” he said.

“What do you think I coordinate?” How to evacuate someone who is sick; how to provide food, water and services. “

Not all clans were receptive to the openings of Israel.

Last month, said Nizar Dughmush, the head of an eminent tribe in Gaza City, he was contacted by a militoman who said he was an intermediary in the Israeli army.

“He said the Israelis wanted us to take care of a humanitarian area of ​​Gaza City, that we should recruit as many family members as possible, and they would provide logistical support, such as weapons, food and refuge,” said Dughmush.

But Dughmush refused their offer, saying that his family was civilians, and that they were not affiliated in Hamas, they had no interest in being “occupation tools”.

Two days later, Dughmush said Israeli war planes began to hammer the tribe district, killing more than 100 members of its clan. Dughmush says the Israeli forces entered the neighborhood 48 hours later and systematically destroyed each house.

“All of this is a revenge against us because we have refused to cooperate,” he said. Two other clans, Dayri and Bakr, were approached in the same way and made their areas attack after rejected Israel’s offer.

“I speak to you now as a displaced person, as well as what remains of my clan, we are all distributed in different parts of Gaza,” said Dughmush.

Al-Astal, who considers himself a long-standing enemy of Hamas, is shameless in his choices, which he considers essential in a post-Hamas Gaza.

“There is no room for Hamas here,” he said.

“We are the new administration and we are the future.”