Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 28.08.2026
After the so-called militia project began, soldiers told Haaretz that the resulting dynamic raised concerns about scenarios like the Sabra and Shatila massacres. An Air Force officer who recently spoke with Haaretz said: “The State of Israel, the IDF and the Shin Bet are sending armed, trained militias to commit war crimes, while I am required to protect them during operations.”
In June 2025, Netanyahu publicly admitted that “on the advice of security officials, we operated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas.” Netanyahu responded to claims that the government had armed “criminals affiliated with ISIS,” referring to the people of Yasser Abu Shabab.
This crime also has political aspects. Israel says it makes any progress in the Trump plan to end the war in Gaza conditional on Hamas disarming, while Hamas sees the militias as a threat and demands their dismantling as a condition for its dismantling.
Although Yasser Abu Shabab is no longer alive, the militia project associated with his name has continued to expand, especially since the October 2025 ceasefire. That ceasefire also divided the Gaza Strip: more than half controlled by the Zionist army, while the rest remains under Hamas control. Five major armed groups now operate there, calling themselves the Palestinian Popular Forces or the Palestinian Counter-Terrorism Mechanism. Videos they publish sometimes show dozens of fighters, and sources in Gaza say some groups may have hundreds of members. Each group operates in a defined area under Zionist army control, including Beit Hanoun, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah.
The proximity of the armed gangs’ bases to the separation line between the Zionist army and Hamas – the yellow line – allows them to easily launch activities in Hamas-controlled territory. Sources in the Gaza Strip, the announcements of the militias themselves, and regular publications in the international media shed light on their activities. They indicate that over the past few months there have been battles and clashes between the gangs and Hamas fighters in several locations in the Gaza Strip.
According to the soldiers who spoke to Haaretz, the members of the gangs are involved in the Zionist army’s operational activity, and an air force officer said that the army sends the militants deep into Hamas territory, to hard-to-reach areas, among other things, to collect smuggling drones: “The instruction was, ‘Bring me the drone, and take everything in it’ – it doesn’t matter if it’s weapons or drugs, they take everything.”
A gang commander in the Deir al-Balah area confirmed the cooperation between him and the Zionist army in the expulsion of Gazans. “This is a message that we are sending from the Israeli side – that they evacuate the place,” he said in a video he posted in May. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that it had received reports that militia forces had ordered Gazans to evacuate, and that families of displaced persons said they had also received phone calls from the gangs claiming to be members of Israeli forces, ordering them to leave within a short time.
On another occasion, in June, the UN reported that displaced persons had testified that they had fled after “Israeli forces – assisted by armed Palestinians – advanced to their areas of residence while dropping bombs from the air.” It is unclear exactly where the gangs were operating to expel Gazans, but in recent months Gazans living near the Yellow Line area have been evicted from their homes, alongside the Zionist army’s efforts to expand the territory under its control, at the expense of Hamas-controlled territory.
Hamas sources told Haaretz that, since the gangs hold weapons and receive support, Hamas will not be able to afford to give up defensive weapons, because they will become targets for the militias.
At the end of last month, the “Peace Council”, the body established by Trump to deal with Gaza, announced an agreement aimed at implementing the next phase of Trump’s peace plan. Articles 8 and 10 of the agreement explicitly link the disarming of Hamas to the withdrawal of the Zionist army from the Gaza Strip and the disarming of the militias. But Netanyahu announced that Israel rejects the document of the Peace Council. Meanwhile, eight Arab and Muslim countries issued a statement condemning Netanyahu’s decision.
Senior Zionist army officials who spoke to Haaretz noted that key figures among the so called militias are not political leaders or a legitimate government alternative to Hamas, but rather gang leaders and drug dealers who took advantage of the chaos in the Gaza Strip and the government vacuum for their personal benefit.