Cnn
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The photo shows a lean and tanned man in a dark helmet. He grabs a rifle and the UN vehicles move behind him while he agitates through traffic.
The man is Yasser Abu Shabab, who says he commands hundreds of armed men known as popular forces to provide protection to international organizations working in southern Gaza.
At the start of the thirties, Abu Shabab was of an eminent Bedouine family in the south of Gaza. On October 7, 2023, he languished in a prison managed by Hamas in Gaza, accused of drug trafficking, before being released after the start of the conflict.
Now it is an emerging presence in the south of Gaza, controlling help road Near the crucial crossing of Kerem Shalom and the supply of men to keep convoys against looting, which has only worsened since the limited aid began to enter Gaza in mid-May following a Israeli blockade.
While the grip of Hamas on Gaza has weakened and the territory’s police were dug, gangs appeared to steal humanitarian aid of convoys and reconstruct it. But many convoys are also arrested and ransacked by desperate civilians.
Abu Shabab told CNN that he directed “a group of citizens of this community who volunteered to protect humanitarian aid against looting and corruption”.
The reality is more complicated.
Israeli officials have Recognized providing weapons At Abu Shabab’s militia, as part of an operation to arm local groups to counter Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the secret business earlier this week, saying that the security forces had “activated Gaza clans that oppose Hamas”. He did not appoint Abu Shabab, but Israeli officials told CNN that Abu Shabab was part of the program.
Abu Shabab insisted that his men had not received weapons from the Israelis. “Our equipment is extremely basic, transmitted by volunteers from their ancestors or gathered from limited local resources.”
For its part, Hamas says that Shabab is a traitor and a gangster. Last week, the group said: “We are committed to God to continue to face the deals of this criminal and his gang, regardless of the cost of the sacrifices we make.”
Hamas killed his brother last year and tried to kill Abu Shabab at least twice, according to Muhammad Shehada, Gaza analyst at the European Council for Foreign Relations.
In response to CNN’s written questions, Abu Shabab has repeatedly denied any link with the Israeli army, saying: “Our forces are not committed to any form of communication with the Israeli army, neither directly nor indirectly.”
Analysts find it difficult to believe, based on the evidence of its movements in the Gaza areas controlled by Israeli. A video from the end of May shows that Abu Shabab stopped a vehicle from the Red Cross and to speak with a civil servant. CNN geolored the meeting to a buffer area controlled by the Israelis near the cross point of Kerem Shalom. Other videos show meetings with United Nations convoys in the same region.
Israel – and in particular Netanyahu – has never established clear plans for what governance and security might look like in Gaza if or when Hamas is defeated. Israel has tried to find groups or clans opposed to Hamas who could play a role, but more recently, Netanyahu and other ministers approved a plan proposed by American president Donald Trump for move residents of Gaza and redevelop the territory.
Abu Shabab has been present near the ruins of the deceased airport from Gaza to Rafah since the end of last year. Shehada at the ECFR said that even if the ceasefire was held earlier this year, his group seemed to disappear.
But its meaning has increased in recent weeks since the Israeli authorities have started to allow a net to reach Gaza via Kerem Shalom in mid-May. The presence of Abu Shabab’s social media, as well as smooth videos and common English comments, have developed.
“It is almost impossible for this to be done inside Gaza,” said Shehada. “It is probably someone outside who manages all this psy-op.”
A diplomatic official told CNN that the UN should face the local elements when he was trying to distribute the aid, whether he was supported by Hamas or not.
Abu Shabab “a few square kilometers from an area under his control, then it is the next guy,” said the manager. “The fact that it is not targeted by the Israelis is a clear indication of the way they see it.”
The official also said that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – The new controversial organization supported by the United States responsible for distributing Gaza aid – had contacts with Abu Shabab, whether directly or indirectly.
Abu Shabab replied to CNN that “with regard to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, we emphasize the need for its work to operate in a unified national framework and to maintain continuous coordination with all legitimate parties.”
GHF told CNN on Sunday that he had no collaboration with the ABU Shabab group. “We have local Palestinian workers of which we are very proud, but none is armed and they do not belong to the organization of Abu Shabab,” said GHF.
Convinces and more
Last month, shortly after, limited aid began to enter Gaza, Abu Shabab displayed that his group had obtained 101 aid trucks, mainly flour, brought by the global food program and rented “my faithful brothers who sacrificed their lives, and all those who volunteered their primitive weapons or a drop of sweat to feed and move.”
The truck drivers told CNN that Shabab had provided 200 armed men to protect convoys.
“Our forces regularly accompany help convoys, and the protection of vulnerable civilians is one of our main priorities,” Abu Shabab told CNN.
The role of his group has extended beyond the protection of convoys.
On May 17, the day before the reopening of the crossing of Kerem Shalom, the work began on a tent camp in eastern Rafah, according to the satellite imagery examined by CNN. This work seems to have concluded on May 30.
The camp is less than 500 meters from the place where Abu Shabab manages control points.
Four days later, the so-called popular forces published a statement saying that Shabab “invites residents of these areas to return, where food, drinks, shelter, security and security have been provided, shelter camps have been put in place and humanitarian aid was opened.”
The camp is found in an area known as Corridor Morag, to which the Israeli army wants the Gazans to move while ordering evacuation orders for a large part of the band.
At the beginning of May, the Minister of Israeli Far -right Finance Bezalel Smotrich said that the Gaza population would be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land between the Egyptian border and the corridor.
A senior Israeli security official declared at the same time that the objective was to separate humanitarian aid from Hamas “by involving civil companies and by creating a guaranteed area patrolled by the FDI”.
This would include a “sterile area in the Rafah region beyond the Morag route, where the FDIs will project all the participants to prevent infiltrates from Hamas”.
Palestinian brand
Abu Shabab’s strength uses Palestinian insignia and flags in good place on his uniforms, but he told CNN that his “basic forces are not an official authority, and we do not operate under a direct mandate of the Palestinian Authority”.
The Palestinian security forces’ office, Major-General Anwar Rajab told CNN that there was no connection between the Palestinian security apparatus and the ABU Shabab group.
His family does not want to have anything to do with him either.
“The leaders and alumni of the Abu Shabab family” said in a statement that they had confronted it with videos showing “the Yasser groups involved in dangerous security commitments, even working within the infiltration units and supporting the Zionist occupation forces which brutally kill our people.”
The family declared its “complete dissociation of Yasser Abu Shabab” and urged anyone who had joined its security groups to do the same.
“We have no objection to those around him immediately; we clearly declare that his blood is wasted,” the family’s statement said.
Abu Shabab told CNN that the declaration was “manufactured and false” and accompanied by “a media campaign that targeted me, me and my colleagues”.
He said his group had endured “false accusations and systematic smear campaigns, and that we paid a high prize”, also alleging that Hamas had killed several of the group volunteers “and members of my own family while we keep convoys for international organizations”.
Muhammad Shehada in ECFR said that there is evidence that the presence of Abu Shabab is developing with Israeli support in Khan Younis, north of his bastion.
Despite this, its scope is still limited. Popular forces speak of “hundreds of daily requests that we receive on our Facebook page of people trying to join us”, but analysts think that Abu Shabab probably has 300 men under his command.
Most Gaza people would never think of joining him for fear of branding, said Shehada.
Even thus, he added, the militia of Abu Shabab now fulfills multiple functions for the Israelis, helping to control where the help or is not going; Try to attract desperate and hungry people to the so-called “safe zone” in eastern Rafah; And carry out high -risk missions to detect the presence of Hamas fighters.
