Why Israel is arming ISIS-linked gangs in Gaza

How occupation uses collaborators to sow chaos and death.

Earlier this month former Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman confirmed that Israeli intelligence has been arming a criminal gang in the Gaza Strip led by a Palestinian named Yasser Abu Shabab.

The gang includes members who have been affiliated with ISIS, the extremist group also known as Islamic State.

This did not come as news to many Palestinians, who have pointed out that criminal gangs protected by Israeli forces have been looting aid trucks entering the Strip for many months – a fact reported by The Washington Post back in November.

Joining us on this episode of The Electronic Intifada Podcast to discuss the Yasser Abu Shebab gang and the wider issue of Israel’s attempt to recruit Palestinian collaborators is Muhammad Shehada.

A Palestinian analyst and writer from Gaza, Shehada is a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has closely tracked the emergence of the Abu Shabab gang and wrote a recent article for The New Arab explaining his findings.

In conversation with this writer and with The Electronic Intifada’s executive director Ali Abunimah, Shehada explains the nature of the gang and the strategy behind Israel’s support for it.

“Netanyahu chose what would be a perfect match for his own personal dilemma,” he explains, “criminals on the run from authority who know that if the genocide is over, they would end up in prison, just like him, and that’s what you have on your hands, basically a bunch of collaborators.”

The goal is to sow chaos and internal division within Palestinian society, as well as to prevent desperately needed aid from reaching the starving population through systemic looting, backed by Israeli military force.

As Shehada argues: “It’s a front, not even a proxy. It’s just a puppet … They’re used by Israel to do Israel’s own dirtiest actions and then pretend that they have nothing to do with it.”

Defeating Hamas?

According to one report in the Israeli media, Israeli intelligence officials are hoping that their backing of the gang could eventually “open the door to new governing alternatives” to Hamas.

Shehada expressed doubt on this in his article, writing that “branding these gangs as potential rivals to Hamas masks the very goal of why Israel created them in the first place. Around 300 untrained thieves, drug dealers, criminals and convicted murderers cannot overpower Hamas’s estimated 30,000 militants.”

According to Israeli news site Ynet, Lieberman actually violated Israel’s strict military censorship laws to publicize his claims – which were then mostly confirmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lieberman – a former political ally turned rival to Netanyahu – apparently exposed Israel’s arming of the Abu Shabab militia as a form of political point scoring. It is likely that he has an eye on the Israeli elections due in October 2026, but which could come sooner if ongoing efforts to topple Netanyahu’s coalition are successful.

Lieberman’s criticism is that the guns Israel is handing over to the militia will eventually be turned on Israel.

Watch the full episode in the video above or listen to the audio version on your favorite podcast platform.

Articles we discussed

• “The rise of Abu Shabab: Mapping the Gaza militia armed by Israel,” Muhammad Shehada, The New Arab

• “What’s wrong with that? How Israel trained and armed an ISIS-linked Gazan militia,” Yossi Melman, Haaretz

• “Gangs and mercenaries” [Arabic], Suheil Kiwan, Arab48

Translation of Arab48 article by the Britain Palestine Media Centre.

Produced by Tamara Nassar.

Main image: Yasser Abu Shabab/Facebook.

Check back on this page at a later date for a full transcript.

Originally published by The Electronic Intifada.