"Since late 2024, Gaza has undergone a transformation that defies traditional frameworks of war or occupation. What is unfolding is not mere military conquest but engineered disintegration — one in which Israel actively cultivates Gaza’s collapse by empowering criminal militias, fragmenting authority, and dismantling every pillar of Palestinian social infrastructure.
At the center of this unraveling stands Yasser Abu Shabab, a 32-year-old Rafah native of Bedouin descent. Once imprisoned by Hamas on charges of narcotics trafficking, Abu Shabab now leads the “Popular Forces” (al-Quwat al-Shaabiya), a militia operating with open Israeli backing in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Publicly, he postures as a provider of order and protector of humanitarian aid; in reality, he is the linchpin of a proxy war to replace governance with warlordism and clan-based coercion.
Abu Shabab’s rise is no accident. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted to “activating powerful clans in Gaza” to counter Hamas, as corroborated by former right-wing Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as well as media investigations showing his militia operating in Israeli-controlled zones, armed with AK-47s seized from Hamas and redistributed with the approval of Israel’s security cabinet."