Israel appears to have rebranded the Abu Shebab criminal gang as a “security force” and using them to facilitate the final phase of the genocide: pushing the entire Palestinian population into a concentration camp in Rafah, then carrying out mass expulsion.
by Muhammad Shehada, reposted from Zeteo, June 6, 2025
On Thursday, Israel’s prime minister confirmed what we had known for months: the Israeli government has been arming, financing, and providing protection to alleged ISIS-linked and criminal militias in southern Gaza.
The Israeli government claims it did this because “any harm to the Hamas regime serves us,” but a gang of 300 fighters, including untrained drug dealers, thieves, murderers, and radicals, cannot overpower Hamas’ 30,000 militants. Realities on the ground indicate a far more nefarious scheme: those gangs have become a proxy used to advance Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, and starvation policies.
They are the very same gangs responsible for looting aid, assaulting humanitarian workers, reportedly collaborating with the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GFH), and, most alarmingly, establishing an encampment in eastern Rafah – the very area the Israeli military is working to push all Palestinians in Gaza into – and using looted food as bait to lure people.
So, who are those gangs? Where are they active? How is Israel using them? And for what purposes?
Israel’s Manufactured “Looting Crisis”
Last November, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the Israeli military was “allowing gangs in Gaza to loot aid trucks and extort protection fees from drivers.” Those looters were charging each truck a “protection fee” of $4,000 or taking over entire trucks and selling the aid in black markets.
Remarkably, the looting was happening at gunpoint while Israeli tanks and soldiers were positioned just dozens of meters away. Those troops usually shoot to kill upon the first sight of any Palestinian that comes within their scope, let alone stand in front of them with weapons.
Haaretz reported that Israel claims it refrained from action against those gangs “due to concern that harm to aid workers could provoke international criticism.” But in fact, Israel consistently bombed those same types of aid convoys on multiple occasions whenever local police or even unarmed volunteers carrying sticks approached to prevent looting.
Cindy McCain, the World Food Program chief, has condemned Israel on multiple occasions for firing at or bombing aid convoys.
“It is clear there is collaboration between [the looting gangs] and Israeli authorities,” said Ayed Abu Ramadan, the chairman of Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce.
“Israel bombs anyone that gets close to the borders with weapons or even a stick, except for those gangs. They stop and loot trucks, then take cover in areas near the border and receive protection from the Israelis,” he told me.
Even more astonishing, according to an internal UN memo obtained by the Washington Post, these looting gangs established military compounds from where they launch attacks on trucks and reportedly set up warehouses with forklifts to unload looted truckloads and horde giant quantities of looted aid to drive prices up before selling some at astronomical prices.
Those very warehouses are in Rafah, which the Israeli military has fully depopulated and rendered an extermination and destruction zone, meaning any Palestinian who attempts to enter is killed or kidnapped. Israel never raided or bombed Abu Shabab’s compound, prompting the UN memo to accuse Israel of providing “active or passive protection” to this gang.
According to Haaretz, the Israeli military said last November that the government considered putting those very armed gangs and the clans behind them in charge of aid distribution. This is despite the Israeli military admitting that “some of the clans’ members are involved in terrorism, and some are even affiliated with extremist organizations like the Islamic State.” We are now seeing this strategy play out in real-time.
From Criminals to Mercenaries and Collaborators
The internal UN memo identified Yasser Abu Shabab as the warlord responsible for the systematic looting of aid in Rafah. According to Israeli media, Abu Shabab has a gang of about 300 armed members. Abu Ramadan, who works closely with truck companies and businessmen, confirmed that Abu Shabab was “the most prominent gang leader” responsible for looting aid.
A senior Gazan security source told me that Abu Shabab is a 30-year-old drug dealer from Shabura in Rafah who was imprisoned in a Hamas military jail until October 7, 2023, on charges of possession of large quantities of narcotics. The source added that Abu Shabab was released during the early days of the war along with other prisoners out of fear of Israel bombing prison facilities.
Another gang leader, identified by local authorities and truck drivers, is Shadi Soufi, a convicted murderer who was awaiting execution in a Gazan prison for killing Jabr al-Qeeq, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), in 2020. Both men come from the bedouin Tarabin clan that stretches across Rafah, Israel’s Negev desert, Egypt’s Sinai, and Jordan. A local security source said those gangs include individuals involved in murders, robberies, and drug smuggling, as well as “Takfiri” (a euphemism for ISIS and similar groups).
Last November, truck drivers reportedly said Soufi’s gang had set up a checkpoint near Israel’s Kerem Shalom (a forbidden “kill zone” for Palestinians), while Abu Shabab established another checkpoint 1.5 km (nearly a mile) away from the border. In one incident last October, Abu Shabab’s gang reportedly looted 80 out of the 100 trucks belonging to one transportation contractor that Israel allowed into Gaza. The gang has killed at least four truck drivers while beating or kidnapping many others and demanding ransoms.
Gaza’s internal security agency issued an arrest warrant for Shadi Soufi in October 2024, while Hamas tried unsuccessfully to ambush Abu Shabab on two occasions last year. During one of those operations, Hamas killed Abu Shabab’s brother and at least 20 others from his gang. The day after the Hamas ambush, Abu Shabab shut down the main road for humanitarian convoys and burned a fuel truck.
Remarkably, during the two-month ceasefire that began last January, both gangs had mostly disappeared, and the looting crisis was gone as well. “One thing we and aid groups noted during the ceasefire is a big decrease in looting,” Tamar Al-Rifai, the communications director for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), told me.
Forensic Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi reported this week that he verified at least one case where Abu Shabab gang members were allowed to hide inside Israel itself, which explains their disappearance.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed the genocide and was later pressured by European countries to allow a trickle of aid back into Gaza, the Abu Shabab gang suddenly reappeared, and looting resurged.
The Gaza security source told me Abu Shabab recently expanded his activity to eastern Khan Younis after the Israeli military invaded and issued mass expulsion orders for the entire city. He added that the gang leader is now staying at the “Jarghoun” villa in an Israeli military-controlled area in Khan Younis. That villa has been turned into a military complex with 40 to 50 armed men. Before then, Abu Shabab was mostly staying in an area close to Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, the source said.
Abu Shabab denies being responsible for the looting crisis, but he did admit to the Washington Post in November that he and his relatives “take from the trucks.” Last Friday, however, Israeli military sources, speaking to Israeli media, named him as one of the leaders of the militias looting aid.
Rebranding Aid Looters as an “Anti-Terror Force”
Last month, Abu Shabab’s group abruptly started two Facebook pages under his name that have been posting daily PR messages in Arabic and English. The advanced linguistic fluency, carefully articulated talking points, and highly professional video clips gave a strong impression to three foreign journalists I spoke to who corresponded with Abu Shabab’s team that the page is being run from outside Gaza.
The posts appeared to be aimed at presenting Abu Shabab as a national “leader” and his gang as a heroic “popular force” that opposes terrorism. The pages stopped posting any content after Thursday’s revelation that Israel has been behind this gang.
Abu Shabab’s page recently released a well-produced video showing his men in uniform in depopulated Rafah on white pickup trucks with machine guns precisely at a time when Israel has bombed over 100 of those same kinds of trucks and when anyone seen publicly with as little as holding a knife is immediately identified by Israeli drones and rendered a target. We now know Israel likely provided those vehicles and weaponry.
The video also showed Abu Shabab’s gang stopping a Red Cross convoy and interacting with officials inside one of the vehicles, presumably to portray themselves as a new legitimate authority.
Images shared by Abu Shabab have been geolocated to have taken place in close proximity to Israel’s Karem Shalom crossing in Rafah. The Red Cross told me those pictures took place “in the IDF designated buffer zone,” an area impossible for any Palestinian to enter or get close to without being killed by Israeli troops.
The Red Cross explained that the “ICRC team was unexpectedly stopped and approached by armed individuals in the IDF-designated buffer zone. The ICRC team explained who they were and the nature of the activities and was able to proceed without incident.” The team was keen to distance itself from this gang, adding, “The ICRC works independently and categorically rejects any insinuation of association or cooperation with any actor.”
Remarkably, the Abu Shabab gang uniforms had Palestinian flag insignias on them, which stood out as a red flag to a senior EU diplomat who told me Israel had recently objected to allowing Palestinian Authority (PA) employees to operate with the European Union Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM) mission at the Rafah border crossing if they wore any PA insignias or uniforms, and they insisted the PA employees wear plain clothes instead.
Allowing Abu Shabab’s gang to wear such uniforms suggests a rebranding effort to create some legitimacy for this new puppet “security force.”
The goal of that “security force” became clear when Abu Shabab posted a message on Tuesday condemning Hamas’ “terrorism” and announcing his armed gang established a tent area in Eastern Rafah, under IDF oversight. He called on starved Gazans to move there if they wanted food. The footage showed gang members handing out food apparently looted from WFP.
This came right after Israeli media reported that Israeli military sources said they were about to make “a move that will change the face of the war,” including pushing Gaza’s civilian population into Rafah. Around the same time, Abu Shabab issued a direct threat to Hamas, giving it a last chance to reach a deal with Israel or else he would make a big announcement.
In other words, Israel knows if it demands all Palestinian civilians in Gaza to go to Rafah, it would provoke an international backlash, and most Gazans would not comply out of a clear understanding that such a step would be a precursor to mass expulsion. Hence, Israel appears to have resorted to rebranding a proxy criminal gang as a “security force” and dressing them in Palestinian uniforms to give them a façade of respectability and legitimacy, in order to mask the forcible transfer towards southern Gaza.
Damning Evidence of Collaboration with Israel
Abu Shabab’s rebranding attempt encountered its first crisis last Friday when Hamas released footage of its members ambushing what they had first thought were Israeli “Mista’arvim” (undercover) soldiers in Rafah. The armed men were going door to door in civilian clothes, rifles, face covers, and cameras conducting surveillance and recon operations in broad daylight.
But local authorities quickly identified the armed individuals in the video as Abu Shabab’s gang. They were walking comfortably without fear of nearby Israeli troops, who usually fire at any moving target in a “killing zone” like Rafah.
One of those men was Ghassan Al-Dahini, who, according to local sources, runs the gangs’ operations on the ground and recruits new members along with a man named Saddam Abu Zakkar. Ghassan survived Hamas’ ambush while four others were killed. A Facebook post from mid-April had identified those four as Palestinian Authority security officials and claimed they were killed in Rafah while “carrying out their national duty.”
Abu Shabab himself confirmed the four men were the same individuals killed in the Hamas operation. However, his group claimed the four had joined Abu Shabab’s forces as volunteers to “cleanse the homes [of explosives] of Rafah and contribute to the safe and secure return of hundreds of residents.”
This claim fell apart on Thursday, however, when Israel’s ex-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman revealed that Netanyahu has been arming ISIS-linked criminal gangs in Gaza. Israel’s military censor had imposed a total ban on Israeli media publishing any details of the Israeli military creating proxies in Gaza, but when Liberman made that statement, and Netanyahu’s office confirmed it, it effectively lifted the ban, and more details emerged.
Not only that. Abu Shabab’s own family disowned him last week after the Hamas footage came out. They vowed to go after him to hold him accountable. The family’s statement added they received “confirmed information from people close to [Yasser] indicating that he was involved in suspicious security activities.”
Why Is Israel doing this?
Experts, UN officials, and local authorities say Israel is backing those gangs for five reasons:
1. Continue its starvation policy
First, the experts say, Israel wants to continue its starvation policy while externalizing blame through a manufactured “looting crisis” after international pressure mounted on Israel to end its total ban on the entry of food to Gaza. “When Israel was pressured to allow food into Gaza, they started encouraging corruption, looting, and chaos,” the Gaza Chamber of Commerce’s Abu Ramadan claimed, adding that Israel’s goal was to “prevent food from going into Gaza to render it uninhabitable.”
A senior Arab diplomat directly involved in the ceasefire negotiation told me Israel uses this starvation as “leverage in negotiations” with Hamas, where it wants to trade allowing aid for Hamas releasing captives without ending the war. Hence, it’s no coincidence that the looting problem disappeared last January when Hamas agreed to release dozens of hostages.
2. Sow chaos and lawlessness and push Palestinians into Rafah
Second, Israel appears to want to sow chaos and lawlessness through proxies in Gaza that challenge Hamas and create societal collapse, and then use this atmosphere to lure Gazans into Rafah with a promise of aid and safety. Since the start of the genocide, Israel has been courting prominent clans and tribes in Gaza to run “Hamas-free security bubbles,” be in charge of aid, and run Gaza’s day-to-day affairs. In March 2024, the Israeli military suggested providing weapons to clans to challenge Hamas. Virtually all families Israel approached refused to cooperate and play that proxy role.
“After Israel failed to attract Mukhtars, clans, or any personalities from Gaza’s civil society, they resorted to this outlaw, Abu Shabab. They couldn’t find anyone but him to use to carry out their agenda,” Abu Ramadan told me.
Israel is now using the Abu Shabab gang not just to create an armed rival to Hamas, but to facilitate the final phase of the genocide, which involves pushing the entire population into a concentration camp in Rafah while “destroying everything that is left of Gaza” in the build-up for mass expulsion.
3. Outsource risky operations and interrogating Palestinians
Additionally, as seen in the Hamas ambush video, Israel appears to be outsourcing risky tasks to the gangs. This could include recon missions, sweeping areas that Hamas likely left with boobytraps, surveillance, and spying.
There have also been reports in recent days of Israel using the gangs to abduct and interrogate Palestinians. Citing unnamed sources, Tirawi, the journalist, reported that in at least one instance, a Palestinian man was lured to the gang members with the promise of food, but was then kidnapped and interrogated.
4. Legitimize the disastrous GHF aid program
Experts also say Israel wants to legitimize GHF – the front US-backed group that, according to Liberman and ex-Prime Minister Yair Lapid, is operated by the Israeli military and funded by the Mossad. This dystopian group has been condemned or boycotted by the UN, Red Cross, and every other aid working in Gaza. Every government the group approached refused to fund it, and GHF’s CEO recently resigned in protest over the group violating basic humanitarian principles. It shut down its main registered office in Switzerland as soon as Swiss authorities launched an investigation, and one of its founding partners, “Boston Consulting Group,” just ditched it and placed the person responsible for this partnership on leave. According to a mainstream media journalist, even Fogbow, the US group that ran Biden’s pier in Gaza, refused to work with GHF.
Israel, however, is trying to force this new GHF regime on the international community as a fait accompli, by presenting it as the only way to feed starved Gazans and solve the looting crisis. Two senior EU diplomats told me that German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas were both tricked by Israel into voicing openness towards GHF before both had to retract such support. The sources said Israel relied on the looting crisis as their main talking point to persuade European leaders to support GHF.
Conveniently, GHF established its distribution hubs in Rafah, the very area Israel wants to expel Palestinians to, which is why UN and aid groups condemned GHF as a ploy for facilitating forcible expulsion.
Multiple sources told me that Abu Shabab’s gang is currently collaborating with the GHF hubs, and one source indicated some gang members were present at the site of the massacre on Sunday, where Israeli troops killed at least 31 aid seekers and wounded over 150. (Zeteo was unable to get in touch with GHF.)
5. Alienate and disempower the UN and other aid groups
Fifth, the experts say that Israel wants to elbow out UN agencies and other international aid organizations that not only provide vital aid to Gaza but also stand as credible witnesses on the ground of Israel’s genocide. Through those looting gangs, Israel has been deliberately making it impossible for anyone other than GHF to deliver aid to Gazans. Israeli authorities have blamed and shamed UN agencies for not picking up cleared aid at the Karem Shalom crossing. In multiple tweets, COGAT and the Israeli military would show footage of piles of food to absolve themselves of responsibility for starving Gazans.
The Israeli military claimed on Friday that it allowed 760 trucks into Gaza, only 238 were picked up by the UN and other aid groups, and half of them were looted along the way, while 522 truckloads remained at Israel’s Karem Shalom crossing, awaiting pickup.
What Israeli officials don’t mention, however, is how they refuse to allow aid convoys to drive through safe routes and instead force trucks to go through “red zones” and the infamous “looting valley.” This made truck drivers fearful for their lives; after several were kidnapped, killed, maimed, or beaten up by the Israel-backed gangs.
This gives Israel a way to externalize blame for its starvation of Gaza. According to Israel, it’s the UN’s fault for not picking up the aid.
A senior UN official told me that the “lack of security is the main impediment once the trucks cross and offload on the Gaza side. Drivers and UN staff must upload the trucks (so get the goods on UN or UN-contracted trucks) then drive during active conflict.”
She added, “Having lost over 300 UNRWA staff and many more from other organizations, including the harrowing PRCS incident, drivers are scared, and the UN isn’t getting sufficient safety guarantees.”
The looting crisis “all seems part of a plan to alienate and disempower the UN,” the senior UN official concluded.
That is why even the UAE, Israel’s close ally, condemned Israel in May after the Israeli military forced an Emirati aid convoy to drive through a “red zone” where Israel-backed gangs looted 23 out of 24 trucks.
This strategy not only aims to deter the UN and other international aid groups from even trying to pick up aid from Karem Shalom, but it also aims to deter donor countries from even sending any aid to Gaza through the UN or INGOs in the first place. For instance, a briefing I viewed showed a European government leader saying they decided to send Gaza-bound aid to Sudan instead when they saw aid was not reaching Gaza.
Thus, by rebranding gangsters as guardians and turning humanitarian corridors into ambush zones, Israel has not only outsourced its violence but sanitized it. The world must recognize this for what it is: a final, calculated phase of ethnic cleansing, cloaked in diplomacy and delivered through mercenaries.
Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer and political analyst from Gaza.
TO UNDERSTAND HOW HAMAS IS COUNTERING THE ABU SHEBAB GANG, READ
Inside the Hamas unit fighting Israeli-armed gangs that loot aid and facilitate displacement in Gaza
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