Gaza's Competing Militias Guarantee Perpetual Chaos
What began as a strategy to “stabilize” Gaza has created a patchwork of armed factions, each fighting for power while the state collapses further into violence and disarray.
In the rubble of eastern Rafah, armed men in mismatched uniforms stop aid trucks at gunpoint. Their leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, an illiterate former drug trafficker who escaped a Hamas prison during an Israeli airstrike, now controls humanitarian routes using Israeli-supplied weapons. On November 16, 2024, his anti-Hamas militia, “Popular Forces,” raided 109 UN aid trucks, looting 98 of them while Israeli troops watched from posts just 500 yards away.
In Khan Yunis, another militia self-described as the “Counter-Terrorism Strike Force” is led by Hussam Al Astal, a man Hamas once sentenced to death, who patrols territory carved out with Israeli backing. To the north, in the ruins of Jabalia and Beit Lahia, Ashraf Al Mansi’s People’s Army (PA) controls checkpoints, warning Hamas forces to stay away from “their” areas.
This is Gaza in October 2025: a patchwork of competing militias—criminal gangs turned “security forces.” Whoever thinks that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing what he can to destroy these militias and stabilize the region is delusional. The case is quite the opposite. To understand the Israeli government’s stance on the militias operating in the Palestinian territories, one has to look carefully at the past.
Before ascending to power, Netanyahu made a promise to destroy Hamas and solidify Israel’s security. After all, Netanyahu assumed office after the Oslo Accords in the 1990s in opposition to the agreements, claiming they endangered Israel’s security and inciting against then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the deal.
Supporting Hamas Against the People’s Army (2012-2023)
In October 2012, under Netanyahu, Israel allowed Qatar to transfer $400 million to the Hamas government in Gaza, claiming the move would “stabilize Gaza” and “maintain quiet.”
A year later, Israeli officials, including members of Netanyahu’s National Security Council, formalized a policy known as “separation” (מדיניות ההפרדה), aimed at keeping Gaza and the West Bank divided to prevent the creation of a unified Palestinian political entity.
In 2018, Israel—again under Netanyahu—began formally allowing monthly Qatari cash transfers to Hamas, amounting to as much as $30 million per month, delivered in suitcases through the Erez crossing. The policy ignited controversy and led to the resignation of then–Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who condemned it as “surrender to terrorism.” At a Likud Party meeting in March 2019, Netanyahu reportedly told members, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state must support bolstering Hamas. This is part of our strategy—to isolate Gaza from the West Bank.”
Netanyahu believed that supporting Hamas would weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PA, effectively burying the prospect of a Palestinian state alive.
That policy collapsed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its devastating attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250, most of them civilians. The money Netanyahu believed could buy Hamas’s silence was instead invested in an elaborate tunnel network, tens of thousands of rockets, and the training of the Nukhba Unit that carried out the assault. Whether intentional or not, Netanyahu’s strategy ultimately undermined Israel’s own security.
Supporting Anti-Hamas Militias (2024–2025)
After the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, who could still believe that militias provide security? Netanyahu could—and did.
On June 5, 2025, the prime minister confirmed reports of new anti-Hamas militias in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter), stating: “On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with that? It’s only good. It saves lives of IDF soldiers.”
Israeli support for these militias reportedly began in May 2024, during the offensive on Rafah.
The Popular Forces soon spread to other areas. In Khan Yunis, the Counter-Terrorism Strike Force was founded on August 21, 2025, led by Hussam Al Astal, a 50-year-old former Palestinian Authority officer who had worked in Israel before joining the PA. Hamas imprisoned him several times and even sentenced him to death for alleged involvement in the 2018 assassination of Palestinian scientist Fadi al-Batsh in Kuala Lumpur.
In northern Gaza, the PA emerged in Beit Lahia and Jabalia, led by Ashraf Al Mansi, while in Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood, the Khalas Clan Militia—led by Rami Khalas and Fatah Central Committee member Ahmad Khalas—claimed control.
Netanyahu’s rationale for arming and supporting these groups, despite their criminal reputations, mirrored his earlier justification for backing Hamas: they undermined his political rivals. Multiple reports have accused these militias of looting aid convoys.
Jonathan Whittall of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said such gangs were responsible for “the real theft of aid since the beginning of the war,” and acts carried out “under the watch of Israeli forces.” Nahed Sheheiber, head of Gaza’s private truckers’ union, said, “Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang, and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing. The one who looted the aid is now the one protecting it.”
This logic—that militias can serve as tools against Hamas—echoes Netanyahu’s earlier argument that supporting Hamas would weaken the PA. His far-right coalition continues to view a Palestinian state as a greater threat to Israel’s security than the chaos of armed militias. In 2015, current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared, “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.”
The consequences of this thinking have been catastrophic, not only for Palestinians but also for Israelis.
The current power vacuum in Gaza, as the sociologist Max Weber might note, represents the collapse of the state’s core function: the monopoly on legitimate use of force. Without it, there is no weak state—there is no state at all.
From U.S. support for the Afghan Mujahideen to India’s covert backing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), history offers repeated lessons: arming militias may yield short-term gains but breeds long-term disaster. Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the regional chaos unleashed by the M23 all prove that proxy militias often outlive and outgun their sponsors.
Netanyahu and Israel’s right wing must confront the hard truth that a weak or fragmented state cannot produce security. Only a stable, moderate government—one that monopolizes legitimate force—can guarantee lasting peace.
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Thank you for your insight.
Another thought: it took a long time for German to become a nation, and not competing and warring principalities. The original meaning of the first verse of the German National Anthem (now omitted due to misunderstandings) "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles" meant that all those belonging to principalities and other separate entities should put the idea of a nation first, over their tribal/local loyalties. It was first an idea. Poets promoted it, as did others. The process took a long time, and other factors played a role. But it began with an idea and the promotion of that idea. E Pluribus Unum. A nation is not a bad concept. I'm hard pressed to think what other governmental forms are better for people.