Anti-Hamas armed group seeks future role in Gaza peace plan

The patchwork of armed groups fighting Hamas in Gaza in recent months has raised pressing questions.

These include groups based on families, criminal gangs and new militias – some of which are backed by Israel, as the Israeli prime minister recently acknowledged.

The Palestinian Authority – which governs parts of the occupied West Bank and is a political rival of Hamas – is also believed to be providing covert support.

But the militias – each operating independently in the 53% of Gaza currently controlled by Israeli forces – have yet to be formally included in US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, which calls for the creation of an international stabilization force and a newly trained Palestinian police force to ensure Gaza’s security in the next phase of the deal.

One of the largest militias is led by Yasser Abu Shabab, whose Popular Force operates near the southern city of Rafah.

In a recent social media video, his deputy spoke about coordinating efforts with the Peace Council, the international body charged with administering Gaza under the plan.

Hossam al-Astal, who leads a militia called the Anti-Terrorism Strike Force near the southern city of Khan Younis, told Israeli media this week that “American representatives” had confirmed that his organization would play a role in Gaza’s future police force.

A U.S. official said they had nothing to announce at this time.

When I asked him earlier this month if he had spoken to Americans about the future, Astaire laughed and told me he would share details soon.

I asked if these conversations made him happy.

“Yes,” he said with a smile.

Hossam al-Astal worked for the Palestinian Authority. His group was small—perhaps dozens of fighters—but increasingly confident and ran a well-supplied tent city near Khan Younis.

When I asked if Israel was providing him with supplies, Asta smiled and said, “Let’s just say it’s not the time for me to answer that question yet.” “But we coordinate with the Israeli side to bring in food, weapons, everything.”

I asked him how he would pay for them.

“People are supporting us all over the world,” he replied. “It’s not all from Israel. They claim that Israel is the only country that supports us and that we are agents of Israel. We are not agents of Israel.”

He told me that dozens of families have come to live in his new site, just inside the yellow line that marks the territory Israel now controls under a ceasefire, and that more are arriving every week.

“We are the new Gaza on day two,” he told me. “We have no problem working with the Palestinian Authority, the Americans and anyone who is aligned with us. We are the alternative to Hamas.”

But many Gazans — including those disillusioned with Hamas — resent the new powers given to these small, dispersed armed groups.

“Only a few men who have no religion, faith or morals join the ranks of these criminal elements,” said Saleh Swedan, who currently lives in Gaza City. “The Gaza government rules us, and although it places a lot of burden on civilians, any government is better than gangs.”

“These groups that collaborate with the occupying forces (Israel) are the worst outcome of the war,” said Zaher Doulah, another Gaza City resident. “Joining them is not only dangerous, it is a great betrayal.”

Montasser Massoud, 31, told me that two months ago he joined Astal’s new tent city with his wife and four children, coordinating with Israeli troops to cross the yellow line at night to avoid Hamas.

But he said relatives who remained in Hamas-controlled areas were critical of the move.

“They kept harassing us, saying we had done something wrong and had no future,” he told me. “I told them they were the ones we were worried about because they lived outside the yellow line and anyone from Hamas could hide next to them and they could get bombed.”

As we spoke on the phone, heavy gunfire around him kept interrupting our conversation.

“This is the (Israeli) military nearby,” he explained. “But that’s not a problem because we know we’re not the target.”

There are currently multiple armed groups targeting Hamas, with complex and overlapping relationships.

The Abu Shabab group, for example, has been accused of robbing aid trucks destined for Gaza during the war, and reports in Israel indicate that two of its members have previous ties to the Islamic State group (IS).

“What’s going on?” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month in response to news that Israel was secretly supporting the militias. “It’s a good thing. It saves soldiers’ lives.”

Revealing the information “will only help Hamas,” he said.

Netanyahu insists Gaza will not be run by Hamas or its rival Palestinian Authority. Under the U.S. peace plan, a non-political technocratic council of Palestinians would govern Gaza under international supervision for a short period until Palestinian Authority reforms are completed.

But a senior Palestinian official rejected Astar’s claims that his fighters would form part of a future police force there.

Major General Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, told the BBC that full integration of personnel from Gaza’s armed groups, some of which are backed by Israel, was unlikely.

“Israel may demand the integration of these militias due to its own specific political and security considerations,” he said in an interview in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “But Israel’s demands do not necessarily benefit the Palestinians. Israel wants to continue to exert control over the Gaza Strip in one way or another.”

The question of what will happen to Gaza’s new militias under lasting peace remains unanswered.

Michael Mirshstein, the former head of Palestinian affairs in Israel’s military intelligence service, said Israel’s decision to support the enemies of Gaza’s enemies shows they have not learned from history.

“This is the same risk Americans took in Afghanistan thirty years ago,” he said. “They supported the Taliban against the Soviet Union, and then the Taliban took the weapons they got from the Americans and used them against the Americans.”

He said Israel now relies on groups of dubious past in the hope they can provide political, social and ideological alternatives to Hamas.

“One day they will use the rifles they got from Israel against the IDF,” he said.

In addition to helping weaken Hamas, Israel’s support for the armed group could make it easier to divide Palestinian opposition to Israel and maintain influence in Gaza after its forces withdraw.

Some critics say arming disparate local groups will make it more difficult to convince Hamas to disarm and for international forces to step in to protect Gaza.

But the risk for Israel is that the same groups it is helping to arm will one day become the new enemies it faces.

Forty years ago, it encouraged hardline Islamist groups in Gaza to counteract the growing power of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The group later became Hamas.

Additional reporting by Naomi Scherbel-Ball, Samantha Granville and the Gaza Freedom Team