Groups of men crawl around burning, waiting for tools to roll through Central Gaza.
Some of them were teachers and other professionals.
Now they have tied together to form gangs and care providers.
The scene is one of the Mad Max films, a dystopian setting where there are no rules.
Gangs waiting to plunder assistant cars in the Netzarim -Gang in Central Gaza. ((ABC News))
“We are a group of men organized in crews – we call ourselves” those who block the roads, “one of the men, Mohammad Salman, told ABC.
“If you want to get help and secure food, you have to get through here; otherwise you won’t eat.
“Nowadays all these people have become gangsters. They grab food from trucks and everything they find on the way. They take away food from someone. If someone takes a truck and I don’t get a share, I go after him.
“That’s how we became. If someone gets something, I will take it from him to eat.
“Some people die of stitches and attack – eat everywhere. We have all become in Mafias and Roadblockers.“
Some men say they have worked with a gang leader named Yasser Abu Shabab.
Some gangs who plunder help are reportedly armed and protected by the Israeli authorities. ((ABC News))
‘Not -Charism, illiterate’ gang leader
Once a searched criminal, it is now generally assumed that Abu Shabab has been armed and protected by the Israeli government – to take control of the part of the southern Gaza where his family has the influence.
Abu Shabab is apparently an unlikely figure to lead a resistance to Hamas’ rule in Gaza, wrote Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the European Council for Foreign Relations, in the new Arab.
“The police in Gaza was perplexed when he appeared as a top leader. The safety source told the new Arab that Abu Shabab 35 years old, thin, weak, is short [around 150 centimetres tall]Unusual, illiterate, has strabismus at one eye and has never received military training, “
he said.
“For them, he did not seem to have anyone with the leadership skills needed to form a group of 300 armed militants, to steal truck loads of help and store it under the radar.”
The UN says that the gang of Yasser Abu Shabab Aid trucks has attacked with the apparent indifference or protection of the Israeli army. ((Lever: Facebook))
Israeli media have reported that Abu Shabab escaped from Israeli aid early during the war.
“He was in a Hamas prison until October 2023 for theft and drug offenses, and his release came under the cover of an Israeli attack on safety facilities in the comic at the start of the war. From that moment his name came to the fore as someone who would fill the security vacuum in the eastern Rafah,” Haariv wrote.
The United Nations Did the Gang of Abu Shabab identified as one of those robbery auxiliary voyages when they entered Gaza and said they did this with the apparent protection or indifference of the Israeli army.
Former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filliu, who spent a month in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders from December 2024 to January 2025, said that he witnessed the gang that was protected by the IDF while looting trucks.
“The Israeli army recognized its inability to promote an alternative based on clan and decided to rely more or less openly on organized crime,” he wrote in Le Monde.
“The key figure in this maneuver was a former minor member of a Rafah family, Yasser Abu Shabab, who had imprisoned Hamas in the past for his different human trafficking activities. But the Israeli protection allocated Abu Shabab to make his activities and gasket, of other clans, often from other clans, from other clans, often from other clans, from other clans, often from other clans, from other clans, often from other clans, from other clans, from other clans, often from other clans.
“What could only be called a gang that was operated on under the eyes of the Israeli army … and it was equipped with brand new weapons, an irrefutable indication of his collaboration with the occupiers.”
The Netzarim -Gang, where many of the auxiliary gangs are lurking, separates the north of Gaza from the South and was released from buildings by the Israeli army. ((Delivered via Reuters: Planet Labs Inc))
Gangs take what they can do
A gang member confirmed to the ABC that the group of ABU Shabab Aid had stolen and sold.
“People would normally work with Yasser, just like employees. He had two services. It was easy,” said the gang member.
“We used to stand along the road to wait for trucks from Gaza to Kerem Shalom. I would take what I could – flour, sugar, everything we needed.“
The man explained that a lot of the plundered food was subsequently sold to traders, although he insisted that auxiliary groups were given part of it.
“They would unload the goods and buy traders. Half of the supplies were distributed under institutions such as schools,” he said.
“The aid agency would arrive to collect its share and then spread it to schools.”
The gang of Abu Shabab calls himself “the anti-terror service” or the “popular forces”. ((ABC News))
The gang member claimed that Hamas had stolen some help, something that the group denies.
“He [Yasser] Worked in safety when he saw the members of the government and Hamas steal from the auxiliary cars when they passed by Central Gaza and Nuseirat, “he told the ABC.
“Then he decided to take action – stealing the trucks to distribute part of the help itself, to hand out money, flower … and that was it.”
Abu Shabab and his men, who now call themselves ‘the anti-terror service’ or the ‘popular forces’, have been accused by many Gazans of working with the Israeli government.
The Israeli government has openly said that it has supported groups like that of Abu Shabab.
Hamas hunters are crashing with members of the Bende of Abu Shabab. ((ABC News))
Netanyahu weapons ‘Clans’ in Gaza
Israël Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Recorded in June That his government had “activated” Clans in Gaza against Hamas.
That led to the concern of the opposition that their weapons could eventually be called on the IDF, or used to create unmanageable chaos.
“In consultation with security officers, we used Clans in Gaza who are against Hamas,” he said in a video on social media.
“What is wrong with that? It saves the lives of IDF soldiers.“
The times of Israel said that defense officials had confirmed that Mr Netanyahu referred to the Abu Shabab gang.
“The sources confirmed that Israel has armed the gang with Kalashnikov rifles, including some who were seized from Hamas during the ongoing war,” ” it wrote on June 5.
Palestinians monitor trucks that wear help in the north of Gaza of the Zikim-Junction controlled by Israel’s. ((AFP: Bashar Taleb))
Former Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman has claimed that Abu Shabab had ties with the IS -Terrorist group.
“The Israeli government gives weapons to a group of criminals and criminals, identified with the Islamic State, in the direction of the prime minister,” he told the Israeli public radio.
The ABU Shabab group would offer security for the new, Israeli and the US-supported food distribution operation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
It denied all the links with the gang.
“GHF has no association with Yasser or the ‘anti-terror service’,” said it in a statement sent to the ABC.
Hamas hunters attacked the group, but said that Israeli troops came to his defense, Israeli media reported.
The arrival of the new assistance has changed the circumstances in the south of Gaza, but Hamas still wants to kill Abu Shabab.
On July 2, the Ministry of the Interior controlled by Hamas in Gaza Abu Shabab gave 10 days to surrender and to be tried to betray.
The ABC called and sent messages to Yasser Abu Shabab, but received no response.
Comments was also sought from the Israeli government and the IDF.
In the meantime, the Israeli government and the army continue to dismiss the United Nations from one worsening hunger crisis in Gaza.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation only distributes food packages in limited locations in the south of and Central Gaza.
The Israeli government stopped allowing food shipments in the north last month.
The “men blocking the roads” are still waiting for the auxiliary prouts, hoping for every opportunity to seize supplies and staying alive.
The UN says that the hunger crisis in Gaza is deteriorating. ((ABC News))
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