Who Is Abu Shabab? Meet the Gaza Gangster that Israel Armed to Counter Hamas
Netanyahu admits to supporting ISIS-linked Gaza gangs, who have been accused of stealing humanitarian aid and have become a proxy to advance Israel's aims.
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.