Armed militia and gangs supported by Israel are seizing control of parts of Gaza, exacerbating its humanitarian crisis and potentially threatening any efforts to bring order if Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza takes hold.
The Israeli military and security services have for several months been arming and training groups in Gaza as local auxiliary forces and as an alternative to Hamas, but the strategy appears to have gathered momentum in recent weeks.
The so-called Popular Forces under a commander called Yasser abu Shabab have been operating in the south of the territory for several months, coordinating closely with Israeli forces around controversial aid distributions sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque US- and Israel-backed private organisation.
Now up to a dozen new militias have emerged across much of Gaza, in addition to the Popular Forces.
Hossam al-Astal, the leader of one newly formed force that is operating in the area of Khan Younis, said: “People fear Hamas here, and Hamas was always betting that there won’t be any alternative to replace them in Gaza, but now I’m telling you, today, there is an alternative force to Hamas. It could be me or Abu Shabab or anyone else, but alternatives today exist.
“I’m sorry, I will work with the devil himself if it helps me to protect my city. [Hamas] must leave Gaza,” Astal told the Guardian last week.
The proliferation of armed militias in Gaza is causing further problems for aid organisations already struggling with Israeli restrictions and massive logistic obstacles.
An official with a major aid agency operating in Gaza said they had not “heard from the de facto authority” – a euphemism for Hamas – since March and were now dealing with a “variety of different actors”.
“In the north there is nobody in charge, in the central area there are some really powerful families and some small informal militia … and in the south you have formalised Israeli clients who get weapons and so on from the Israeli military,” they said. “Law and order is deteriorating, the social fabric is falling apart and people are really desperate and in survival mode and it is becoming everyone for themselves.”
Many such armed groups have a record of looting aid or extorting protection payments from humanitarian organisations as well as from other Palestinians living in Gaza.
In a recent report, the independent conflict monitor Acled said that since October 2023, it had recorded more than 220 “intra-Palestinian violent incidents that have resulted in the deaths of around 400 Palestinians”. Victims included police officers, clan and gang leaders, thieves, anti-Hamas activists, individuals accused of collaborating with Israel and merchants accused of profiteering, Acled said.
“Looting of aid, theft, and violent activity by gangs, clans, and armed groups have become widespread,” the report noted, adding that nearly 70% of such incidents occurred after a two-month ceasefire was broken by Israel in March 2025.
Israeli forces have systematically targeted local police officers and officials, whom they consider part of Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007 and ran the territory’s interior ministry.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and reduced much of the territory to ruins. In August, famine was declared in parts of northern Gaza.
Hamas has sought to fight against the gangs and militia, forming special units which target looters and collaborators. In June, Hamas was reported to have killed 50 fighters from the Popular Forces. Two weeks ago, Hamas ambushed a group of militia-men in the north of Gaza and killed several, one Palestinian analyst said. There are also regular reports of public executions of “collaborators” by Hamas.
Astal, 50, denied any direct support from Israel and said his pregnant daughter and many relatives had been killed by Israeli airstrikes, which he said proved that he was not a “collaborator”.
“We are not fighting Hamas for Israel, but for ourselves … Today, I have the opportunity so I should take it. I don’t mind signing a peace deal with Israel, because we have had enough wars and a lot of my people are dying every year. I’m 50 years old. Since I was born we have been having wars,” he told the Guardian.
The Times of Israel reported that Astal worked inside Israel for years before joining the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, which were forced out of Gaza by Hamas when the Islamist militant organisation seized power in 2007. He was later imprisoned multiple times by Hamas, the newspaper said.
It is unclear how many armed men Astal can deploy, and Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces are thought to comprise less than 100 fighters. There are reports of other armed groups, sometimes only a dozen or so strong, forming in eastern Gaza City and the so-called “central camps” around Nuseirat.
Yaakov Amidror, a former major general and national security adviser, said last week Israel could exploit divisions within Gaza’s society to build forces that would oppose Hamas. One possibility would be to support major families who are descendants of original inhabitants of the territory against others whose parents or grandparents arrived in 1948, when forced to flee what became Israel.
“They can be the local strong people and take control of their area, family or tribe and not let Hamas be there, and then we can support them and if they can be part of the solution then [that’s] great … If the worse comes to the worse it will be like Somalia … No one will be in control. It will be bad for Israel but better than having Hamas,” Amidror said.
Under Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan, outlined on Monday, a council of technocrats would run the territory and a “temporary international stabilisation force”, possibly composed of troops provided by regional powers, would maintain order in Gaza. But such a force might struggle in such a chaotic environment.
Analysts have warned that empowering groups such as Astal’s in an already highly-fractured society could accelerate internal conflict and strengthen criminal elements.
“Without strict oversight, they could even morph into rogue actors who fuel instability rather than mitigate it,” wrote Neomi Neumann, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute and former head of the research unit at Israel domestic security service, Shin Bet, earlier this year.
Astal said he was not frightened by Hamas, who had sentenced him to death.
“They are trying to take me down and I know this, but I don’t care,” he told the Guardian.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, of whom about 50 remain in Gaza, about 20 of them thought to be alive.