AMMAN, Jordan — When Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire earlier this year, it called into question the fate of the militias Israel had been building during a devastating two-year war as an alternative ruling force in the Gaza Strip. Many expected Hamas, still the dominant force in the sector, to persecute them.
Instead, Israel has moved militias to the half of Gaza it has not yet withdrawn from, east of the so-called Yellow Line, the military border that divides Gaza in two. In the Israeli-controlled half of the territory, five factions, still backed by Israeli arms and aid, have created what are essentially tiny fiefs, although they continue to wage a persecution campaign across the Yellow Line to prevent Hamas from reasserting its dominance.
For its part, Israel wants to use the groups as local proxies to secure parts of the enclave under its control, ensure they are free from any hostile factions, and then set up humanitarian aid distribution points to keep residents there.
“The goal,” according to a June report from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv on Israeli-backed militias in the Gaza Strip, “is to cut off Hamas’s access to both the local population and incoming humanitarian aid.”
But the militias, which first emerged as criminal gangs exploiting wartime security vacuums and including members with dubious links to the Islamic State, have bigger plans: They are positioning themselves as an integral part of any post-conflict plan.
“After two years of destruction by Hamas, we are the core of a new Gaza that will provide a decent life for the citizens of Gaza,” said Hussam al-Astal, head of one of the factions called Strike Force Against Terror, which controls a largely deserted village southwest of the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis. He said Israel was working with five different groups operating in Israeli-controlled parts of the enclave.
He added that he had hundreds of militiamen under his command, contradicting observers who estimate the total number of militants in the five groups to be around 200.
“Israel is now looking for a peace partner in the Gaza Strip,” Al-Astal said. “This is what we will be.”
The largest of the factions working with Israel is the so-called Popular Forces, which was until recently led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a 32-year-old clansman twice jailed by Hamas before the war on drug trafficking charges; and is known to have ties to the Islamic State in neighboring Sinai. He escaped from a Hamas prison during the war.
Abu Shabab, who was regularly accused by aid groups of looting aid trucks, was killed this month by disgruntled members of his militia, according to a statement from the Abu Shabab clan.
He was soon replaced by his deputy, 39-year-old Ghassan al-Duhini, an equally controversial figure who once served as a Palestinian Authority security officer in the Gaza Strip before leaving to join Jaysh al-Islam, an armed group in Gaza that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015.
Al-Duhini reportedly coordinated smuggling with militant groups in Sinai. He, too, was arrested twice by Hamas before the war and fled when it began.
Since the ceasefire, Israel has been acting through the Popular Forces as its proxy in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, which was virtually destroyed during the war and destroyed by Israeli forces.
Now the city is mostly empty. But the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (the body that is supposed to monitor the ceasefire, coordinate aid deliveries and begin reconstruction in the enclave) is considering Rafah as a pilot project for a so-called “alternative safe community” without Hamas, numbering between 10,000 and 15,000 people, according to a UN official and aid worker, who declined to be named so as to be able to speak freely.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Mar-a-Lago on Monday, where he met with President Trump and a number of US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with whom Netanyahu said on X that he had a “great meeting.”
Netanyahu discussed the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire, which includes the creation of an interim authority to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as the International Stabilization Force, which will be deployed in place of Israel. Both points are problematic for Israel, which is unwilling to move to the second stage without seeing Hamas disarmed.
Plans call for Gaza to be governed by a Trump-led Peace Council that will also oversee the reconstruction of the strip for its 2.1 million people.
During a news conference ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump pointed to the Israeli leader and said he was “looking forward” to the start of reconstruction.
“We've already started some things, we're doing things in the area of sanitation and things like that,” Trump said. “But Gaza is a difficult place, it is a really difficult area.”
Reconstruction will likely begin in Rafah, an unnamed aid worker said, which would mean “the US will cooperate with security forces associated with ISIS,” using the Islamic State's acronym.
Of Al-Duhini, an aid worker said: “There are so many other, better partners in Gaza than this guy.”
In a recent propaganda video released by the Popular Forces group, Al-Duhini addresses the militant group and tells them they are working within the Trump-led Peace Council and International Stabilization Force, which is tasked with overseeing a ceasefire.
“We will clear Rafah one grain of sand at a time,” he says, to root out “terrorism” and allow civilians to return to the area. “We want to create a safe community.”
In practice, according to analysts and people living in areas under Popular Forces control, this means increased security measures: Police regularly confiscate and check people's phones, prevent them from communicating with anyone in Hamas-controlled areas and search homes.
“They treat them like prisoners,” said Muhammad Shehada, a Gaza expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He added that Israel has provided the groups with lists of various Hamas members captured or killed in the Gaza Strip and is monitoring interrogations.
Meanwhile, the militias also carried out attack operations against Hamas militants, killing some of them when the opportunity presented itself; The Popular Forces said in June that they had killed 50 Hamas members.
Hamas on Monday confirmed the deaths of a number of its top commanders in Israeli strikes last year.
Among the leaders killed was Muhammad Sinwar, head of the Qassam Brigade's military division, production manager and chief of staff. Abu Ubaydah, the masked spokesman last seen giving a speech in September, was also killed; the group identified him as Hutaifa Al-Kahlut. Israel previously revealed its identity in 2023.
Groups have also acted on behalf of Israel: last week, a group called the People's Defense Army, based near Gaza City, shelled houses in an area east of the city, forcing residents to flee the city. Observers said this was aimed at allowing Israel to move the Yellow Line westward. (The location of the Yellow Line was specified during the ceasefire, but Israel continues to move it west.)
According to Al-Astal of the group Strike Force Against Terror, the five militias plan to join forces soon to create a military council, which he said could act as a transitional government when Hamas falls. He said international recognition would help.
There are signs of support outside Israel. Popular Forces fighters showed up in vehicles with United Arab Emirates markings, and some factions claim they have peripheral ties to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority denies any links.
“We hope for the best and that our presence will expand,” Al-Astal said. He added that once that happens, he expects people in Hamas-controlled areas to move east to militia control.
“I tell you, if the path to them had been opened, there would not have been a single person left in those parts of Gaza under Hamas rule, except for a few Hamas militants,” he said.
