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ISRAEL’S GAZA PROXY STRATEGY IS COLLAPSING  
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Muhammad Shehada
December 12, 2025
+972 Magazine
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_ The killing of gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab, a known felon and
druglord, by one of his own men has exposed the bankruptcy of
Israel’s vision for the Strip. _

Yasser Abu Shabab , (Popular Forces/Facebook; used in accordance with
Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

 

The assassination last week of Yasser Abu Shabab — the 32-year-old
leader of the Israeli-backed “Popular Forces,” a militia operating
in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip — is more than a lurid
gangland hit. His killing at the hands of his own disgruntled
militiamen is a clear representation of a policy coming undone.

For months, Israel stitched together a sordid alliance of convicted
felons, former ISIS affiliates, and opportunistic collaborators,
presenting them as the embryo of a local governance alternative to
Hamas in Gaza, while using them to orchestrate starvation and carry
out attacks on Israel’s behalf. Now, this attempt to cultivate a
network of criminal proxy gangs as subcontractors of its occupation is
collapsing into paranoid infighting and bloody chaos.

Abu Shabab himself was a convicted drug trafficker
[[link removed]] with documented links to
ISIS in Sinai
[[link removed]].
Sentenced by a Gazan court in 2015 to 25 years in prison, he served
eight before fleeing amid the chaos following October 7. He then
emerged in Gaza under the protection of the Israeli army to lead a
gang of 120 fighters, part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu admitted
[[link removed]] was an
explicit strategy to arm powerful clans in Gaza to counter Hamas.

According to the Gazan investigative journalist Mohammed Othman, Abu
Shabab’s death was set in motion when the Israeli army discovered
food it had supplied to his gang inside a Hamas tunnel last month.
Israel quickly imposed restrictions on the group’s members, limiting
their movements in Rafah, reducing their food rations, and blocking
their most trusted leaders from traveling in and out of Israel.

Tensions inside the gang boiled over. Within days, after an internal
investigation, the gang’s deputy and de facto ruler Ghassan Duhaini
detained Jum’aa Abu Sunaima, whose brother Mahmoud oversaw the
distribution of food to Abu Shabab’s gang and other families in the
area, under suspicion that Jum’aa was diverting food to Hamas
militants.

Mahmoud went to Abu Shabab’s home to demand the release of his
brother, but was told Jum’aa faced three options: remain detained,
be handed over to the Israeli army, or execution. The confrontation
escalated until Mahmoud pulled out an automatic rifle
[[link removed]] and opened fire;
Abu Shabab was gravely injured and succumbed to his wounds after
reportedly being evacuated to the Soroka Hospital in the Israeli city
of Be’er Sheva, and both Mahmoud and Jum’aa were killed in the
clashes.

Members of the Popular Forces. (Yasser Abu Shabab/Facebook; used in
accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

What followed Abu Shabab’s killing was a cascade of retaliatory
violence. According to Othman and other local sources, Duhaini,
wounded in his left leg during the confrontation, was treated in
Israel and returned to carry out a number of executions — killing
Abu Shabab’s bodyguards for failing to intervene, as well as the
gunman, his detained brother, and several others. He also launched
attacks on the Abu Sunaima clan’s homes, wounding several residents,
confiscating phones, assaulting women, and placing families under
lockdown. The clan later issued a public statement
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confirming the deaths of Jum’aa and Mahmoud and implicitly
suggesting that the two were responsible for Abu Shabab’s death.

This implosion captures a profound truth about Israel’s proxy
experiment in Gaza: by outsourcing its occupation of a besieged
population to the most violent and opportunistic collaborators, Israel
will not produce a stable alternative to Hamas’ governance. Rather,
such a strategy only fosters a miniature warlord economy, setting the
stage for endless cycles of retributive violence.

DEEPENING COLLABORATION

Israel’s relationship with Gaza’s criminal gangs began almost
immediately after the army’s May 2024 invasion of Rafah. Gang
members were soon looting and extorting humanitarian aid convoys with
what witnesses described as passive, and at times active Israeli
protection: the theft could occur as close as within 100 meters
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of Israeli tanks, with troops firing only when local police or
volunteers attempted to intervene.

The arrangement served Israel’s strategic aims, deepening Gaza’s
starvation while shifting blame onto local groups and preserving
plausible deniability. At the peak of the crisis this past summer,
nearly 90 percent
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of UN aid convoys were intercepted before reaching distribution
centers. 

In November 2024, an internal UN memo identified Abu Shabab’s
Popular Forces as the primary culprit. The group had constructed a
fortified military complex
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with warehouses and forklifts
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stockpile stolen aid, which they resold on the black market at
exorbitant prices.

Armed and masked Palestinians secure trucks loaded with Humanitarian
Aid entering Gaza through the Israeli Kerem Shalom Crossing, on Salah
al-Din Road east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, January
19, 2025. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Later that month, Hamas militants ambushed an Abu Shabab unit at the
European Hospital in Khan Younis, killing around 20
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of their fighters, including the gang leader’s brother and
bookkeeper, Fathi. After the attack, the Israeli army expanded its
collaboration with Abu Shabab, who now had highly personal reasons to
take revenge on Hamas.

Israel subsequently deployed the Popular Forces and other gangs for
espionage, intelligence gathering, kidnappings, assassinations, and
clearing hazardous areas ahead of Israeli forces. A senior Hamas
leader in Doha told me recently that when Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades
clashed with [[link removed]] the
Dogmoush clan in October, militants recovered Israeli lists of people
to kidnap, interrogate, and assassinate, along with large sums of
cash, weapons, and vehicles
[[link removed]].

By May 2025, Israel had further formalized its collaboration. The army
provided gang members with uniforms bearing the Palestinian flag
[[link removed]] to create the impression
of a legitimate security force, and tasked them with building a large
tent camp in eastern Rafah
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the Egyptian border. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz defense
minister spoke two months later of his plan to concentrate 600,000
Gazans there, preventing their return to central and western Gaza —
and Abu Shabab echoed the same population targets in a Wall Street
Journal op-ed
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published under his name.

A Facebook page [[link removed]] soon
appeared promoting the gang’s “safe” area in both Arabic and
English, even offering monthly salaries
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between $1,000 and $1,500 for new recruits. According to a former gang
member who spoke to Mohammed Othman, civilians who relocated there
were effectively held hostage, barred from returning west or
contacting their families.

The UAE also started to support Abu Shabab, seeking to create local
rivals to Hamas. An Arab diplomat told me that Abu Dhabi preferred
“Sudan-like chaos” to any scenario in which Hamas survived the
war. In June, Duhaini appeared in a video beside a vehicle with UAE
license plates, holding a brand-new Serbian rifle that — according
to a source at the WSJ —can only be found in two countries in the
Middle East: Israel and the UAE.

 

🚨Important: Ghassan Duhine, 38, was a commander in Jaysh al-Islam
(the extremist group that pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2015 &
kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston in 2007), according to local
sourcesDuhine is the de facto leader of the Abu Shabab gangHis
brother,… pic.twitter.com/tl57ULDk0Q [[link removed]]

— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) June 9, 2025
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By the summer, however, Israel was experiencing buyer’s remorse.
[[link removed]] Abu Shabab’s ranks
didn’t grow, and few civilians moved into their camp. The situation
deteriorated further after Israeli opposition lawmaker and former
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman inadvertently violated military
censorship by criticizing
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Netanyahu for arming “the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza.” Netanyahu
later confirmed elements of this account, prompting the Abu Shabab
family and the Tarabin clan to publicly disown Abu Shabab and brand
him a collaborator.

Even the gang’s recruitment of  well-known Hamas critic Momen
Al-Natour backfired. After they published photos
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with him, his family denounced
[[link removed]] him and soon
fled Gaza to escape the gang’s orbit.

THE GANGS OF EASTERN GAZA

Since the October ceasefire, Israel has retained control of
depopulated areas beyond the so-called “Yellow Line,”
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account for more than half of Gaza territory. Here, according to
multiple local sources, Israel has quickly found another use for Abu
Shabab’s group and five other proxy gangs, who take part in
hit-and-run operations and tunnel hunting missions to root out Hamas
militants in Rafah. Before he was killed, Abu Shabab was also involved
in Israel’s plans to build “New Rafah,” a Potemkin village
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Israel’s refusal to allow reconstruction in western Gaza.

According to a veteran European journalist, shortly before his death,
Abu Shabab was discussing a plan with Duhaini to form a
“transitional government of East Gaza,” modeled loosely on
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. The gang also released footage
[[link removed]] at
the end of November marketing itself as an arm of Trump’s Board of
Peace and International Stabilization Force. Israel has been
persistently promoting the gang to American decisionmakers, and
Israeli media even reported
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Abu Shabab met with Jared Kushner at the U.S. Military’s
Civil-Military Coordination Center in southern Israel, which the U.S.
State Department denied.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits the U.S. Military’s
Civil-Military Coordination Center, in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel,
October 24, 2025. (Olivier Fitoussi/POOL)

Leadership of the Popular Forces has since passed to Duhaini, formerly
the commander of Jaysh Al-Islam [[link removed]] in Rafah,
a radical faction that pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2015 and was
responsible for the 2007 kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston
[[link removed]].
Gaza sources say Duhaini was detained twice by Hamas before the war
and previously served in the PA’s security sector. His brother, a
militant with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, died in a Hamas prison.

Another key commander in Abu Shabab’s gang is Essam Nabahin, an ISIS
operative [[link removed]] who fought
the Egyptian military in Sinai in the late 2010s. After resurfacing in
Gaza in 2022, he was arrested for killing a police officer
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but escaped prison on October 7. Other members of the Popular Forces
have similarly violent or criminal histories, including drug
trafficking, murder, and sexual assault.

The second-largest gang is led by Ashraf Al-Mansi, who operates out of
an abandoned school in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. A Gaza-based
source said Al-Mansi came from a Hamas-aligned family: his uncle, a
Hamas mosque imam, was killed by Fatah in 2007, and his father was
once detained by Israel. Al-Mansi later turned to drug dealing and
distanced himself from Hamas. One of his best-known lieutenants, Abu
Anas Ziedan
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is a former Salafi jihadist who was part of ISIS before joining
Al-Mansi’s group.

Another prominent figure is Hussam Al-Astal, a former member of the
Palestinian Authority security forces and perhaps the most visible
gang leader after Abu Shabab, owing to his appearances
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Israeli and international media. Hamas previously imprisoned him for
allegedly participating in the Mossad-sanctioned assassination
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of Palestinian engineer Fadi al-Batsh in Malaysia in 2018. Like
several others, he escaped prison after October 7, and now leads a
100-man militia
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between Khan Younis and Rafah known as the Counter-Terrorism Strike
Force
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Counter-Terrorism Strike Force (anti-Hamas militia in Gaza) leader
Husam al-Astal sends a message to Hamas, saying that the next shots
are aimed at the Islamist group. pic.twitter.com/254UZda1JG
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— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) November 21, 2025
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Despite his media prominence, Al-Astal is estranged from his family.
His brother Nidal is a senior commander in the Al-Qassam Brigades
commander leader, and he is also related to prominent Hamas leader
Yunis Al-Astal. A former neighbor of Al-Astal informed me that Israel
killed his daughter in a tent strike during the war, and that his
son-in-law was killed while seeking aid from the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation. Al-Astal’s wife and surviving children refused to join
him in Khan Younis, and the extended Al-Astal family formally disowned
him.

In eastern Gaza City, Rami Heles, another former PA security officer,
leads a smaller group — while in eastern Khan Younis, a fifth gang
is headed by Shawqi Abu Nusaira, a retired PA official who spent over
a decade in Israeli prisons and was reportedly responsible for a
recent execution
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alleged Hamas member. Although Abu Nusaira formed the militia in late
November, security sources in Gaza say they expect him to dissolve his
group and seek clemency in the wake of Abu Shabab’s death, given the
absence of any personal vendetta against Hamas.

A sixth, much smaller faction emerged in eastern Rafah after Abu
Shabab’s death. Calling itself the “Popular Defense Force
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the group has released a single video threatening Hamas, but its
leadership remains unknown.

A FAILED BARGAIN

Abu Shabab’s killing has dealt a serious blow to Israel’s strategy
of proxy rule in Gaza, for at least three reasons. First, Abu Shabab
was the face of  Israel’s propaganda campaign
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deradicalizing some Gazans and creating “safe alternative
communities” for them in eastern Gaza, a narrative Israel uses to
justify caging and continuing to target an estimated two million
people in the ruins of the enclave’s western half.

Second, in addition to promising power, money, and food, Israel has
appealed to these gangs by offering protection from Hamas, intervening
militarily on multiple occasions to defend them from attacks. But that
pledge is meaningless now that the threat of violence has emerged from
within the gangs’ own ranks.

There is no ideology or cause binding the gang members together other
than immediate material gain, which means any dispute between gang
members can end fatally. Indeed, in the chaotic aftermath of Abu
Shabab’s death, multiple gang members fled to western Gaza and
surrendered to Hamas’ security forces
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in return for clemency, with more expected to join soon.

Third, Abu Shabab’s death has triggered a power struggle between
Duhaini, who leads the gang’s military wing, and Humaid Al-Sufi,
head of its civil wing. The latter’s faction has been spreading
rumors that Duhaini is behind the death of Abu Shabab. The Al-Duhaini
family is the smallest in the Tarabin tribe, largely outnumbered by
the Al-Sufi family, which makes Duhaini’s ascendance to the throne
difficult for others to swallow.

The paranoid flight of gang members back to Hamas for clemency, the
budding succession wars, the visceral betrayal within Abu Shabab’s
ranks: these signal not merely the collapse of a proxy force, but the
bankruptcy of the entire cynical premise.

Rejecting both Hamas’ rule and the PA’s return, Israel was reduced
to bargaining with Gaza’s outcasts, men whose only common cause with
Israel (and Netanyahu
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in particular) was a shared desperation to escape a day of reckoning.
With Abu Shabab’s death, the gang model stands exposed as a strategy
devoid of vision or principle — a damning testament to the failure
of Israel’s vision for Gaza’s future.

_Muhammad Shehada is a Gazan writer and political analyst, a visiting
fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations._

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