The photo shows a lean, tanned man in a dark helmet. He’s grasping a rifle and UN vehicles move behind him as he waves through traffic.
The man is Yasser Abu Shabab, who says he commands hundreds of armed men known as the Popular Forces to offer protection to international organizations working in southern Gaza.
In his early thirties, Abu Shabab is from a prominent Bedouin family in southern Gaza. On October 7, 2023, he was languishing in a Hamas-run jail in Gaza, accused of drug trafficking, before being released after the conflict started.
Now he is an emerging presence in southern Gaza, controlling aid routes near the crucial Kerem Shalom crossing and providing men to guard convoys against looting, which has only worsened since limited aid started entering Gaza in mid-May following an Israeli blockade.
As Hamas’ grip on Gaza has weakened and the territory’s police force has been hollowed out, gangs have emerged to steal humanitarian aid from convoys and re-sell it. But many convoys are also stopped and ransacked by desperate civilians.
The reality is more complicated.
For its part, Hamas says Abu Shabab is a traitor and a gangster. Last week, the group said: “We pledge before God to continue confronting the dens of that criminal and his gang, no matter the cost of the sacrifices we make.”
Hamas killed his brother last year and has tried to kill Abu Shabab at least twice, according to Muhammad Shehada, a Gaza analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Israel – and in particular Netanyahu – has never laid out clear plans for what governance and security in Gaza might look like if or when Hamas is defeated. Israel has been trying to find groups or clans opposed to Hamas who might play a role, but more recently Netanyahu and other ministers endorsed a plan put forward by US President Donald Trump for relocating Gaza’s residents and redeveloping the territory.
A growing role
Abu Shabab has had a presence near the ruins of Gaza’s long defunct airport in Rafah since late last year. Shehada at the ECFR said that while the ceasefire held earlier this year, his group appeared to vanish.
But his significance has grown in recent weeks, since Israeli authorities began to allow a trickle of aid to reach Gaza through Kerem Shalom in mid-May. Abu Shabab’s social media presence, along with slick videos and fluent English commentary, has expanded.
“It’s nearly impossible this is being done inside Gaza,” Shehada said. “It’s probably someone outside that is running this entire psy-op.”
Abu Shabab “has a few square kilometers of an area under his control, and then it’s on to the next guy,” the official said. “The fact that he is not targeted by the Israelis is a clear indication of how they see him.”
The official also asserted that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – the controversial new US-backed organization tasked with distributing aid in Gaza – had contact with Abu Shabab, whether directly or indirectly.
Convoys and more
Last month, soon after limited aid began entering Gaza, Abu Shabab posted that his group had secured 101 trucks of aid, mostly flour, brought in by the World Food Programme, and praised “my loyal brothers who sacrificed their lives, and everyone who volunteered their primitive weapons or a drop of sweat to feed the bereaved and displaced.”
His group’s role has expanded beyond protecting convoys.
The camp is less than 500 meters from where Abu Shabab runs checkpoints.
Four days later the so-called Popular Forces issued a statement saying that Abu Shabab “invites the residents of these areas to return, where food, drink, shelter, security and safety have been provided, shelter camps have been set up, and humanitarian relief routes have been opened.”
The encampment is in an area known as the Morag Corridor, to which the Israeli military wants Gazans to move as it orders evacuation orders for much of the strip.
Early in May, the far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the population of Gaza, would be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land between the Egyptian border and the corridor.
A senior Israeli security official said at the same time that the goal was to separate humanitarian aid from Hamas “by involving civilian companies and creating a secured zone patrolled by the IDF.”
This would include a “sterile area in the Rafah region beyond the Morag route, where IDF will screen all entrants to prevent Hamas infiltrators.”
Palestinian branding
Nor does his family want anything to do with him.
“Leaders and elders of the Abu Shabab family” said in a statement that they had confronted him about videos showing “Yasser’s groups involved in dangerous security engagements, even working within undercover units and supporting the Zionist occupation forces that brutally kill our people.”
The family declared its “complete disassociation from Yasser Abu Shabab” and urged anyone who had joined his security groups to do the same.
“We have no objection to those around him eliminating him immediately; we state clearly that his blood is wasted,” the family statement said.
He said his group had endured “false accusations and systematic smear campaigns, and we have paid a heavy price,” also alleging that Hamas had killed several of the group’s volunteers “and members of my own family while we were guarding aid convoys for international organizations.”
Muhammad Shehada at ECFR said there is evidence that Abu Shabab’s presence is expanding with Israeli support into Khan Younis, to the north of his stronghold.
Even so, his reach is still limited. The Popular Forces speaks of “hundreds of daily requests we receive on our Facebook page from individuals seeking to join us,” but analysts believe Abu Shabab probably has only about 300 men under his command.
Most people in Gaza would never think of joining him for fear of being branded collaborators, said Shehada.
Even so, he added, Abu Shabab’s militia now serve multiple functions for the Israelis, helping control where aid goes, or does not go; trying to entice desperate and hungry people to the so-called ‘safe zone’ in eastern Rafah; and carrying out high-risk missions to detect the presence of Hamas fighters.