Afrasianet - Ali Saadeh - Yasser Abu Shabab will disappear  from the Palestinian scene faster than he appears, as his fate is uncertain, amid reports that he has begun to prepare for the worst-case scenario as the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip  comes into effect.

Officially, the former spokesman of the occupation army announced that "the militias cooperating with the Israeli army in Gaza will not enter Israel, and they must face their fate, the army has not forced anyone to fight Hamas, and they must bear the consequences of their decisions."

Israeli ridicule and gloating

More than one Israeli official and media outlet has entered the line of schadenfreude, with  the Hebrew website Hadashot Israel sarcastically tweeting: "Now that the war is over, Hamas will be able to operate freely in Gaza, good luck to Yasser Abu Shabab and to other organizations in Gaza that have cooperated with Israel."

The terms of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the start of the exchange deal say that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has an opportunity to rebuild its strength and organize its ranks after two years of intensive Israeli military operations, which in practice means the movement's return to managing the affairs of the Gaza Strip relatively freely.

Human shields to protect the occupation soldiers

In light of the successive developments on the ground in the Gaza Strip and in the region in general, it is no longer important to talk about Yasser Abu Shabab's past and history, as he faces an unknown fate after the announcement of the deal and the ceasefire, after he played a role similar to that of Saad Haddad and Antoine Lahad in southern Lebanon, according to multiple journalistic approaches.

The Israeli Internal Security Service (Shin Bet) considered that Abu Shabab was carrying out the mission of protecting soldiers and reducing the human losses of the occupation army, so that Abu Shabab, who is nicknamed "Pablo Escobar Gaza", and his gangs would be human shields and substitutes for the use of soldiers.

Gangs whose primary mission is to loot and obstruct the distribution of aid trucks, and to shoot at civilians with the aim of creating chaos to deepen the collapse of civilian life in the Gaza Strip and destroy any possibility of reconstruction. To systematically destroy the system of civilian survival and create conditions that make the Gaza Strip unviable.

A project designed by the Shin Bet

Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of the so-called "Popular Forces" supported by the occupation in the Gaza Strip, acknowledges the existence of relations with the Palestinian Authority, noting that they are "partners in the security screening of arrivals" to the area under his control east of Rafah, and the PA has not issued any statement confirming Abu Shabab's claims.

In an interview with the military correspondent of Israel's Galatz  radio, Doron Kadosh, Abu Shabab confirms that this examination is being conducted through the Palestinian intelligence service in Ramallah, which is cooperating to ensure that "terrorist elements do not enter and disrupt the project to liberate Gaza from Hamas." According to his claims.

This confirms what the Israeli channel "i24NEWS" reported through its correspondent specialized in Arab affairs, Baruch Yadid, that an undisclosed Arab country supervises the training of this gang, while Mahmoud al-Habbash, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, runs direct channels of communication with its leader, Yasser Abu Shabab.

The channel quoted a senior political source in Ramallah as confirming that "everything is being done in coordination with President Abbas," according to the Israeli channel's claims.

 The  Shin Bet was the one who "designed" a project to support armed gangs in the Gaza Strip, with the aim of using them as an alternative force to confront the resistance factions, and this plan was approved by Israeli Prime  Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of War Yisrael Katz, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.

Job role

The armament operation took place in complete secrecy under the command of the Shin Bet, and included the transfer of tens and perhaps hundreds of small arms such as pistols and Kalashnikov rifles to these groups, most of which were confiscated by the occupation army from Gaza.

Israeli officials acknowledged that these gangs are active in the drug trade, the imposition of royalties and the looting of aid trucks, and that they have nothing to do with the Palestinian national struggle, and that they do not possess any qualifications that the Rafah city administration qualifies for "the day after the war."

In summary, these groups are nothing but a cooperative group that plays a functional role for the occupation, and the occupation army will not sacrifice a single soldier to protect them when the day of Palestinian retribution comes, as it did with the South Lebanon army, which was abandoned by the occupying Power.

Its weapon is from the Israeli army

The occupation authorities have admitted the existence of at least 3 groups that supply weapons and funding, and are aimed at "filling the security and political vacuum", according to the occupation, and pursuing armed elements affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but in ways aimed at avoiding the direct fingerprints of the occupation army.

These militias do not receive regular Israeli weapons, but rather supply the army's confiscated warehouses of the resistance factions in Gaza and weapons seized by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, making their combat tools appear to be more "spoils of war" than Israeli military equipment.

In addition, its members receive monthly salaries and permits to carry weapons from the Israeli army, which makes them closer to local mercenaries serving the occupation's goals under Palestinian cover.

According to Israeli sources, the tasks of these groups include gathering intelligence, monitoring areas empty of Hamas and Islamic Jihad elements, and participating in policing places crowded with displaced civilians in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

These groups train openly in front of Israeli forces inside the Gaza Strip and move freely near invading units, in small formations of between 5 and 10 militants. 

In order not to be confused, the IDF has begun in recent weeks to code the locations of the deployment of these militia members in the command and control system, just as the positions of the army forces itself are determined, making them part of the military plan on the ground.

The Bucket Gang in Qizan Al-Najjar

Hussam al-Astal, a former member of the Palestinian Authority's security services, recently came to the surface, announcing the formation of an armed group in the Qizan al-Najjar area, southeast of Khan Younis, which had been completely evacuated.

Al-Astal called on residents to move to areas under their control to provide them with food, water and shelter.

He told The Times of Israel that his group will receive anyone who opposes Hamas and that it has enough food, water and shelter for everyone, noting that in the coming days, he will work to receive about 400 Palestinians, after confirming their security identity.

He said he was in charge of the area, as was Yasser Abu Shabab, who is in charge of areas east of Rafah and parts east of Khan Younis, stressing that he was in contact with Abu Shabab, but he was working independently.

Al-Astal spoke of coordination between his group and the occupation, saying, "Soon we will rely on Israel to provide us with electricity and water," claiming that he receives support from several sources, including the United States, Europe and Arab countries he did not specify.

Al-Astal was detained by the security services, which are affiliated with the Hamas government, after they succeeded in luring him from outside the Gaza Strip into it, indirectly through one of his brothers, who is active with the rank of officer in its internal security apparatus, and investigated him on charges of collaborating with the occupation at the time about his involvement in the assassination of Engineer Fadi al-Batsh in Malaysia in 2018.

In 2022, the Permanent Military Court in Gaza issued a death sentence after convicting him of killing al-Batsh.

After the outbreak of the war, Al-Astal managed to escape from prison and tried to escape towards Israel, but after the emergence of Yasser Abu Shabab's group in Rafah, he joined it and fought with it, before establishing his new group alongside other militants, most of whom were accused of collaborating with Israel and were detained in the prisons of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation abandons the Abu Shabab militia

The Hebrew newspaper "Israel Hayom" revealed a sharp security dispute between the occupation army and the Shin Bet over the fate of the militias formed by the occupation during the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, as the Shin Bet proposed to transfer these elements to closed camps within the Gaza envelope area as a temporary measure to "protect them and ensure security control over them."

However, the army strongly rejected the proposal, justifying its position that "the danger that these elements may pose to Israeli settlers outweighs any obligation to protect them," especially after the Military Intelligence (Aman) monitored indications that a number of militia members had fled, after receiving promises of amnesty from Hamas.

As the war approached, the occupation seemed to be unannouncedly abandoning these local tools, and this pattern of temporary attachment to the occupation's local agents reflected an old Israeli policy of social security exploitation, where these groups are used as interim tools and then discarded as remnants of war.