Penultimate attempt to liquidate Hamas

A few weeks ago, there was an armed confrontation between Hamas militants and Popular Forces fighters, the latter with the direct support of the Israeli army, in the southern Gaza Strip. The incident, with five deaths, confirms the escalation of tension in recent weeks in some areas of the Strip under Israeli patronage.

At the beginning of June, one of the leaders of the Israeli opposition, Avigdor Lieberman, revealed in an interview that Israel armed groups of Palestinian criminals sometimes linked to the jihadist organization Islamic State, an option Lieberman considered dangerous for the Jewish state. A media uproar followed, and hours later Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reluctantly confirmed Lieberman's words.

The idea of arming anti-Hamas militias was from the resignation of Ronen Bar, who until recently headed the Shin Bet, the secret services that deal with the Palestinians. Bar's reasoning was as follows: there is no danger in arming small groups of Palestinians in Gaza with light weapons, because we are talking about only a few dozen men, no more than 300 in total.

The leader of the new and enigmatic Popular Forces, Yasser Abu Shabab, is a Bedouin from the Tarabin tribe from Rafah, in southern Gaza, only 32 years old. He is well known for his criminal activities as a thief, smuggler, and drug dealer. On October 7, 2023, when the war broke out, Abu Shabab was imprisoned, but in the ensuing chaos, Hamas cleared the prisons and let him go.

Criminals as partners

There has been a debate in Israel about whether it's worth having known criminals, even people associated with the Islamic State jihadists, as Lieberman said. Opinions are divided, but Netanyahu thinks it's worth it, which is why he approved the Shin Bet director, without discussing such a sensitive issue with the rest of the government.

So the Popular Forces have their Kalashnikovs and pistols. The Israeli press reports that these weapons belonged to Hamas and were recovered by the army in the final months of the war in Gaza. Ronen Bar argues that the Popular Forces are a small group, and even if they would like to fight Israel, their weapons are few and insignificant compared to the large arsenal held in the Strip by Hamas and other militias.

Netanyahu's goal is liquidate Hamas And to do so, it can ally itself with any enemy. This confirms that the Israeli secret services are infiltrated within the most problematic groups in the region. This fact simply adds fuel to the UN-documented contacts between the Israeli army and the Islamic State in the Golan Heights. At least some of the Islamic State's weapons during the Syrian war were Israeli-made.

Local media report that Israel is conducting a "pilot program" in a small area east of the city of Rafah. If successful, the experiment could expand to other locations to reduce Hamas's influence. Incidentally, the family has acknowledged that Abu Shabab collaborates with "Zionist employment forces" and, in fact, is not opposed to its being killed by Hamas.