Champion of the people or a traitor? A new force emerges in southern Gaza

The photo shows a lean, tanned man in a dark helmet. He’s grasping a rifle and UN vehicles move behind him as he waves through traffic. The man is Yasser Abu Shabab, who says he commands hundreds of armed men known as the Popular Forces to offer protection to international organizations working in southern Gaza. In his early thirties, Abu Shabab is from a prominent Bedouin family in southern Gaza. On October 7, 2023, he was languishing in a Hamas-run jail in Gaza, accused of drug trafficking, before being released after the conflict started. Now he is an emerging presence in southern Gaza, controlling aid routes near the crucial Kerem Shalom crossing and providing men to guard convoys against looting, which has only worsened since limited aid started entering Gaza in mid-May following an Israeli blockade. As Hamas’ grip on Gaza has weakened and the territory’s police force has been hollowed out, gangs have emerged to steal humanitarian aid from convoys and re-sell it. But many convoys are also stopped and ransacked by desperate civilians. Abu Shabab told CNN that he leads “a group of citizens from this community who have volunteered to protect humanitarian aid from looting and corruption.” The reality is more complicated. Israeli officials have acknowledged providing weapons to Abu Shabab’s militia, as part of an operation to arm local groups to counter Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the covert enterprise earlier this week, saying the security forces had “activated clans in Gaza which oppose Hamas.” He did not name Abu Shabab, but Israeli officials told CNN that Abu Shabab is part of the program. Abu Shabab insisted to CNN that his men had not received weapons from the Israelis. “Our equipment is extremely basic, passed down by volunteers from their forefathers or assembled from limited local resources.” For its part, Hamas says Abu Shabab is a traitor and a gangster. Last week, the group said: “We pledge before God to continue confronting the dens of that criminal and his gang, no matter the cost of the sacrifices we make.” Hamas killed his brother last year and has tried to kill Abu Shabab at least twice, according to Muhammad Shehada, a Gaza analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. In response to written questions from CNN, Abu Shabab repeatedly denied any connection with the Israeli military, saying: “Our forces do not engage in any form of communication with the Israeli army, neither directly nor indirectly.” Analysts find that difficult to believe, based on evidence of his movements in Israeli-controlled areas of Gaza. One video from late May shows Abu Shabab stopping a Red Cross vehicle and talking with an official. CNN geolocated the encounter to an Israeli-controlled buffer zone close to the crossing point at Kerem Shalom. Other videos show encounters with United Nations’ convoys in the same area. Israel – and in particular Netanyahu – has never laid out clear plans for what governance and security in Gaza might look like if or when Hamas is defeated. Israel has been trying to find groups or clans opposed to Hamas who might play a role, but more recently Netanyahu and other ministers endorsed a plan put forward by US President Donald Trump for relocating Gaza’s residents and redeveloping the territory. A growing role Abu Shabab has had a presence near the ruins of Gaza’s long defunct airport in Rafah since late last year. Shehada at the ECFR said that while the ceasefire held earlier this year, his group appeared to vanish. But his significance has grown in recent weeks, since Israeli authorities began to allow a trickle of aid to reach Gaza through Kerem Shalom in mid-May. Abu Shabab’s social media presence, along with slick videos and fluent English commentary, has expanded. “It’s nearly impossible this is being done inside Gaza,” Shehada said. “It’s probably someone outside that is running this entire psy-op.” A diplomatic official told CNN that the UN had to deal with local elements as it tried to distribute aid, whether they are backed by Hamas or not. Abu Shabab “has a few square kilometers of an area under his control, and then it’s on to the next guy,” the official said. “The fact that he is not targeted by the Israelis is a clear indication of how they see him.” The official also asserted that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – the controversial new US-backed organization tasked with distributing aid in Gaza – had contact with Abu Shabab, whether directly or indirectly. Abu Shabab responded to CNN that “with regard to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, we stress the need for its work to operate within a unified national framework and to maintain continuous coordination with all legitimate parties.” GHF told CNN on Sunday that it had no collaboration at all with Abu Shabab’s group. “We do have local Palestinian workers we are very proud of but none is armed and they do not belong to Abu Shabab’s organization,” GHF said. Convoys and more Last month, soon after limited aid began entering Gaza, Abu Shabab posted that his group had secured 101 trucks of aid, mostly flour, brought in by the World Food Programme, and praised “my loyal brothers who sacrificed their lives, and everyone who volunteered their primitive weapons or a drop of sweat to feed the bereaved and displaced.” Truck drivers told CNN that Shabab had provided 200 armed men to protect the convoys. “Our forces regularly accompany aid convoys, and protecting vulnerable civilians is one of our top priorities,” Abu Shabab told CNN. His group’s role has expanded beyond protecting convoys. On May 17, the day before the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened, work started on a tent encampment in eastern Rafah, according to satellite imagery reviewed by CNN. That work appears to have concluded on May 30. The camp is less than 500 meters from where Abu Shabab runs checkpoints. Four days later the so-called Popular Forces issued a statement saying that Abu Shabab “invites the residents of these areas to return, where food, drink, shelter, security and safety have been provided, shelter camps have been set up, and humanitarian relief routes have been opened.” The encampment is in an area known as the Morag Corridor, to which the Israeli military wants Gazans to move as it orders evacuation orders for much of the strip. Early in May, the far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the population of Gaza, would be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land between the Egyptian border and the corridor. A senior Israeli security official said at the same time that the goal was to separate humanitarian aid from Hamas “by involving civilian companies and creating a secured zone patrolled by the IDF.” This would include a “sterile area in the Rafah region beyond the Morag route, where IDF will screen all entrants to prevent Hamas infiltrators.” Palestinian branding Abu Shabab’s force uses Palestinian insignia and flags prominently on its uniforms, but he told CNN that his “grassroots forces are not an official authority, nor are we operating under a direct mandate from the Palestinian Authority.” The office of the spokesperson for the Palestinian Security Forces, Major General Anwar Rajab, told CNN there was no connection between the Palestinian security apparatus and Abu Shabab’s group. Nor does his family want anything to do with him. “Leaders and elders of the Abu Shabab family” said in a statement that they had confronted him about videos showing “Yasser’s groups involved in dangerous security engagements, even working within undercover units and supporting the Zionist occupation forces that brutally kill our people.” The family declared its “complete disassociation from Yasser Abu Shabab” and urged anyone who had joined his security groups to do the same. “We have no objection to those around him eliminating him immediately; we state clearly that his blood is wasted,” the family statement said. Abu Shabab told CNN that the statement was “fabricated and false” and accompanied by “a media campaign targeting me and my colleagues.” He said his group had endured “false accusations and systematic smear campaigns, and we have paid a heavy price,” also alleging that Hamas had killed several of the group’s volunteers “and members of my own family while we were guarding aid convoys for international organizations.” Muhammad Shehada at ECFR said there is evidence that Abu Shabab’s presence is expanding with Israeli support into Khan Younis, to the north of his stronghold. Even so, his reach is still limited. The Popular Forces speaks of “hundreds of daily requests we receive on our Facebook page from individuals seeking to join us,” but analysts believe Abu Shabab probably has only about 300 men under his command. Most people in Gaza would never think of joining him for fear of being branded collaborators, said Shehada. Even so, he added, Abu Shabab’s militia now serve multiple functions for the Israelis, helping control where aid goes, or does not go; trying to entice desperate and hungry people to the so-called ‘safe zone’ in eastern Rafah; and carrying out high-risk missions to detect the presence of Hamas fighters.