Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of an Israeli-backed militia in Gaza known for looting aid and its ties to ISIS, has been killed, according to media reports.
Initial reports said that Abu Shabab was killed in clashes with “Gaza clans,” but Israeli media later reported that he died after being beaten by a member of his own group. According to the Israeli news site Ynet, Abu Shabab was evacuated by Israeli forces from Rafah but died of his injuries en route to an Israeli hospital.
Abu Shabab’s death is seen as a blow to Israel’s plans for Gaza, as the Israeli government wants to use the militias it backs against Hamas. Abu Shabab’s group, formally known as the “Popular Forces,” is the largest of the Israeli-backed militias that operate under the watch of the IDF in the Israeli-occupied side of Gaza.
The fact that Israel was arming Abu Shabab’s group was first revealed by Israeli opposition leader and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arming an “ISIS-affiliated gang” in southern Gaza.
According to a report from Sky News, one of Abu Shabab’s senior commanders, Issam Nabahin, was identified by Hamas and Egyptian intelligence as an ISIS militant years earlier. Israeli media reported that Nabahin had fought for ISIS against the Egyptian army in Sinai.
Abu Shabab himself has been accused of maintaining arms smuggling ties with ISIS-Sinai and was previously jailed in Gaza for drug trafficking. He escaped prison after Israel unleashed its genocidal war on Gaza and began to form a gang that eventually received Israeli support and turned into the Popular Forces.
Last year, an internal UN memo identified Abu Shabab’s gang as “the main and most influential stakeholder behind systematic and massive looting” of aid trucks in southern Gaza. Abu Shabab once admitted to looting aid trucks in an interview with The Washington Post, saying that he “takes from the trucks” but claimed he didn’t touch “food, tents, or supplies for children.”
News of Abu Shabab’s death came after Netanyahu spoke favorably of the Israeli-backed gangs and militias in Gaza. “There are Palestinians inside Gaza who are currently fighting Hamas. They say, ‘Enough of the tyranny of terror.’ They want to be masters of their own destiny, and I think we should give them a chance,” he said.
