Yasser Abu Shabab: Israel’s agent of chaos in Gaza

In late July, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an op-ed attributed to Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian warlord with a criminal past, portraying him and his militia as potential saviors of Gaza.

The piece, echoing Israeli talking points, suggested that US and Arab support for Abu Shabab could swiftly “transform” most of the strip “from a war zone into functioning communities,” ostensibly free from Israeli bombardment and flush with humanitarian aid.

But behind this carefully crafted image lies an Israeli proxy – a man embedded in organized crime and political subterfuge, now repurposed to advance Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to starve, displace, and ultimately ethnically cleanse Palestinians in Gaza.
Who is Abu Shabab?

Abu Shabab, 35, hails from Rafah in southern Gaza and belongs to the Bedouin Tarabin tribe, which spans Gaza, Israel’s Naqab, and Egypt’s Sinai. Before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, he was notorious for his involvement in smuggling weapons, drugs, and contraband through Gaza’s tunnels and border crossings. He was also believed to have ties to extremist groups in Sinai, including the local ISIS affiliate, formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

Hamas authorities had imprisoned him for murder and drug trafficking, but he was released in October 2023 when Israeli air raids forced the movement to open its prisons.

Since then, Abu Shabab has rebranded himself as a “nationalist,” a “humanitarian,” and even a “liberator.”

But these claims are widely rejected by Palestinians, including members of his own tribe. A senior Tarabin elder publicly disowned him, labeling him a “looter and bandit” operating solely for personal gain. Aid officials echoed this assessment. One aid coordinator called him a “criminal, a fugitive ... untrustworthy and mentally unstable.”

His own relatives have accused him of collaborating with the occupation military in targeted killings of Palestinians and have called for his “liquidation,” declaring his “blood is forfeit.”

Starving as warfare

After the 7 October resistance operation by Palestinian factions, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant – now a fugitive from international justice – announced a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off all access to food, water, fuel, and electricity. “We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly,” Gallant said in Hebrew.

Days later, a detailed proposal to forcibly expel all Palestinians from Gaza, under the pretext of protecting them, was prepared by Israel’s Ministry of Information.

Weeks later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for both Gallant and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

In response to mounting global scrutiny, Tel Aviv pivoted to a more insidious strategy: weaponizing hunger through sabotaging the existing UN aid distribution system.

In January 2024, Israel launched a smear campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main provider of aid to Gaza, falsely claiming it was infiltrated by Hamas operatives who took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The campaign was successful in pressuring western countries to cut the UN refugee agency’s funding.

Simultaneously, Israel slashed the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza. By February, only 62 trucks entered daily – a fraction of the 500 required to prevent mass hunger.

Israel ensured even this amount of food would not reach those who needed it by carrying out a string of airstrikes against members of Gaza’s Hamas-run civilian police force. The attacks caused officers, who were protecting the convoys, to withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing.

According to the Washington Post, the amount of aid entering Gaza “collapsed,” as the convoys delivering it were then exposed to widespread looting by criminal gangs.

In May 2024, the occupation state further moved to sabotage the UN aid system by occupying and closing the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the route through which most aid had flowed, and redirecting it through the Kerem Shalom.

Tel Aviv’s looting agent

With the withdrawal of Hamas police, Abu Shabab and his gang established a base in southeast Gaza from which it could freely loot aid trucks entering the strip via Kerem Shalom, all while operating under Israel’s protection and watchful eye.

In October 2024, the UN issued a memo concluding that criminal gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli military. According to the memo, one gang leader established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”

The memo identified Abu Shabab as “the main and most influential stakeholder behind systematic and massive looting” of aid convoys.

The largest single looting incident occurred in November 2024. On that day, a huge joint convoy of 109 UN trucks carrying food supplies entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom – only to be ambushed and stripped bare by armed looters. According to UN officials, 98 out of the 109 trucks were raided, their food, fuel, and even tires stolen.

It was “the biggest looting of UN aid anywhere, ever,” in the words of an NPR reporter.

Crucially, a UN spokesperson noted the convoy had been rerouted on short notice by the Israeli military onto unfamiliar roads, ensuring it would fall prey to the gangs.

For months, Israel approved the use of only one road passing through a “desolate patch” of southeast Gaza, the Washington Post observed.

“The only route they give us is directly through the looters,” said one aid worker speaking with the newspaper.

Israeli media later reported that Abu Shabab’s group was armed with Kalashnikov rifles provided by “Israeli security bodies,” in a decision approved by Netanyahu, providing a further sign that Israel was behind Abu Shabab’s looting campaign.

Blaming Hamas

While covertly facilitating Abu Shabab’s looting, Israeli officials publicly blamed Hamas for stealing aid, in an effort to further restrict the entry of food to Gaza and deepen the hunger and starvation of its residents.

In the wake of the mass looting incident in November, it was reported that:

“COGAT, the Israeli military’s civilian affairs department for the Palestinian territories, has justified restrictions on the flow of goods by alleging repeatedly that Hamas is stealing aid and preventing it from reaching civilians.”

Israel’s cynical game was confirmed in May 2025 by Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories. In reference to Abu Shabab, he stated that:

“Israel has publicly claimed that the UN and NGO aid is being diverted by Hamas. But this doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza.”

Whittall’s comments were further validated by a July 2025 USAID report, which also confirmed Hamas had not been involved in stealing aid.

A war of attrition

In March 2025, Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire reached with Hamas in January. Israeli leaders once again openly imposed a new siege on Gaza, preventing all aid from reaching the strip.

Then, in April, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued evacuation orders covering most of Gaza, while launching a new offensive pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into an “ever-shrinking bubble,” CNN reported. Katz’s goal was to “empty” large parts of Gaza while treating anyone who refused to obey evacuation orders as a “combatant.”

While Israel claimed its objective was to defeat Hamas and free Israeli captives held by the group, CNN observed that, “Israel’s strategy may have another purpose; to make life so unbearable for Gazans crammed into an ever-smaller pocket of territory without proper shelter that they begin to head for the exit.”

Katz appeared to make this objective clear, saying amid the offensive and blockade that, “We are working to advance the plan for the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents.”

According to Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, the so-called migration plan would be anything but voluntary:

“The real and lasting answer will come only through the full advancement of the emigration plan – ‘Force him until he says, I want it.’”

Gaza ‘Humanitarian’ Foundation

In parallel, Netanyahu launched the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an aid mechanism staffed by former US special forces and contractors with opaque funding.

But the GHF, which began operating in May, did not distribute aid across Gaza. It established isolated “hubs” in the south, “designed as death traps.” Nearly 1,000 Palestinians were shot at or killed while seeking food from these hubs. Some were targeted by armed GHF security guards, while others were targeted by Israeli soldiers opening fire on starving crowds with sniper rifles, mortar shells, and even tank fire.

Despite the danger, Palestinians needing aid to prevent their children from starving had no choice but to come to the GHF sites, which meant relocating to tent camps near them.

The GHF was part of Israel’s military operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” with the stated objective of the “concentration and movement of the population.” In June, Tel Aviv admitted its goal: relocating all Gazans to a southern “sterile zone” surrounding the GHF hubs.

The UN and aid groups quickly rejected the GHF aid model, saying Israel was “using food as a tool for forced displacement.”

Concentration camps

As hunger deepened, Abu Shabab posted videos inviting displaced Palestinians to settle in his Israeli-guarded tent city in eastern Rafah.

He claimed to launch a recruitment drive to staff “administrative and community committees,” which would include doctors and nurses, engineers, primary school teachers, and public relations experts.

Abu Shabab claimed that more than 2,000 civilians were already living in his “protected zone,” and that his Popular Forces, allegedly consisting of just 100 armed men, had built schools, health centers, and other civilian infrastructure there.

Speaking with the Washington Post, he asked for support from the US, EU, and Arab states.

“We hope they support our vision and empower us to make all people in the Gaza Strip live like we do, taking control of our own areas in dignity and humanity,” Abu Shabab stated.

However, his attempt to bring “dignity” to Palestinians was soon revealed to be the first stage of an Israeli effort to build a massive concentration camp in Rafah.

On 7 July, Defense Minister Katz announced a plan to build a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, in the same area where Israel allowed Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces to establish their base and tent camp.

The plan would begin by moving 600,000 Palestinians, primarily from the tent camps in the Al-Muwasi area, into the new zone after a security screening. The remainder of Gaza’s over 2 million Palestinians would be moved there later.

“Once inside, residents would not be allowed to leave,” Haaretz reported, citing the defense minister.

The planned “humanitarian city,” which no one would be “allowed to leave,” was quickly acknowledged as a concentration camp and the first step toward the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, including by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry … this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert told The Guardian. “It is to deport them, to push them, and to throw them away.”

Manufactured governance, planned chaos

In June, Prime Minister Netanyahu finally acknowledged support for Abu Shabab, saying on social media that Israel had “activated” some Palestinian clans in Gaza, on the advice of “security officials.”

Netanyahu’s comments affirmed previous reports in Israeli media that the operation to arm Abu Shabab and other clan-based gangs was “planned and managed” by the Shin Bet to create “alternative governing structures” that challenge Hamas.

The strategy mirrored the occupation state’s project to create “village leagues” in the occupied West Bank in the 1970s and 80s. The project involved backing local clan leaders with funds, weapons, and privileges to weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and block Palestinian statehood.

“It’s the oldest colonial strategy in the book,” said Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University. By supporting Abu Shabab, Israel had succeeded in “sowing utter chaos,” which Israel wants” because if the Palestinians are unified, then they might have to actually negotiate or deal with them,” Khalidi added.

In addition to helping Israel starve Palestinians and establish a concentration camp for their eventual ethnic cleansing from the Gaza, Abu Shabab has vowed to help in the next stage of the chaos Israel has planned: civil war.

“There is no stopping a civil war against Hamas,” Abu Shabab stated in an interview with Israeli public broadcaster KAN in July, claiming that his Popular Forces “will be the heirs in Gaza” after Hamas is “crushed and defeated.”

Far from empowering Palestinians, Abu Shabab is simply a tool of Israeli strategy – facilitating the starvation, fragmentation, and displacement of his own people to serve the occupation state’s long war on Palestinian liberation.

https://thecradle.co/articles/yasser-abu-shabab-israels-agent-of-chaos-in-gaza