World
Anti-Hamas militia leader Yasser Abu Shabab killed in Gaza Strip – reports
A Palestinian anti-Hamas militia leader has been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli army radio.
Yasser Abu Shabab, the commander of the former looting gang Popular Forces, along with a large number of members from his group, and senior commander Ghassan al Duhine, reportedly fell into a well-planned ambush set by the resistance factions.
The Reuters news agency reported that Abu Shabab, the most prominent anti-Hamas clan leader in Gaza, had died of his wounds in a hospital in southern Israel. It did not say when he died.
Hamas had no comment, its Gaza spokesperson said, while Israeli authorities did not immediately make any comment.
Ghassan Al Duhine, left, was the deputy commander of the Popular Forces’ military wing. Pic: Facebook
Hamas has accused Abu Shabab of collaborating with Israel, which he denied.
Sky News revealed that Abu Shabab’s Bedouin militia was smuggling vehicles into Gaza with the help of the Israeli military and an Arab-Israeli car dealer.
Popular Forces has been positioning itself as Gaza’s future government, despite denials in June that Abu Shabab had any intention of forming a government in Gaza.
The militia said at the time that he was focused solely on providing security to aid convoys and Palestinians.
Speaking to Sky News, however, Hassan Abu Shabab, a relative and childhood friend of Yasser Abu Shabab, showed no such restraint – he talked of reforming the school curriculum and holding a referendum on normalising relations with Israel.
“We’d like to run everything,” he said.
Yasser Abu Shabab (right), in a photo uploaded to his social media account. Pic: TikTok
Looting trucks and smuggling cigarettes
He said in October that the recruitment of new militias had swelled Popular Forces’ troops across Gaza to around 3,000.
The headquarters of the militia are located in a small neighbourhood in Gaza’s southern Rafah area, in territory still held by Israeli forces.
The base’s location is strategically important – it sits along the route by which aid trucks must travel when entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, a route that aid officials have named “Looters’ Alley”.
An internal UN report, dated November 2024, identified Abu Shabab and his gang as “the most influential stakeholders behind the systematic and massive looting of convoys”.
The UN document identified their primary source of income as smuggling cigarettes – one of the many goods which Israel has officially banned from entering Gaza. The price of individual cigarettes has at some points reached $20.
Hassan Abu Shabab admitted that the group was involved in looting trucks and smuggling cigarettes, though he said they only ever targeted commercial trucks they believed to be supplying Hamas.
Read more:
Investigation reveals Israel’s support for militia
Hamas battles militias for control of Gaza
Revealed: The four militias backing Israel
He said it eventually escalated, with Hamas’s men allegedly killing his cousins in a “massacre” that left 54 people dead.
Sky News could not independently verify his claim, but there were numerous reports of deadly clashes between Abu Shabab’s men and Hamas, which declared the Popular Forces leader a wanted man.