Hamas and Israel-backed gang engage in battle of attrition in Gaza
Sources told The National on Monday that Hamas has hit back at the gang, known as the Yasser Abu Shabab Popular Forces, by quietly eliminating its members and supporters.
"Hamas is assassinating them in the range of five to seven a day," a sources said. "It's the latest chapter in a history of enmity between Hamas and armed gangs and families opposed to its rule in Gaza."
The Yasser Abu Shabab gang now has up to 150 members, up from about 75 a little more than a week ago, who are equipped with assault rifles, walkie-talkies and night vision goggles, the sources said.
They added that members of the gang are paid, which explains its rapid growth at a time when job opportunities are extremely scarce in an enclave devastated by war since October 2023.
The leader of the gang is Yasser Abu Shabab, 31, the sources said. He has long been viewed with suspicion by residents of Gaza and many of his men have criminal records for drug trafficking and murder.
But the gang has been operating in full view of the Israeli military since emerging in Gaza last month, the sources said. The group operates outside the framework of any recognised Palestinian authority and is accused of trying to create an alternative government model amid the leadership vacuum created by the war.
Israel has not yet publicly shared its plan for Gaza after the conflict, which it says will not end until Hamas has been eliminated and all hostages held by the group are freed.
Israel said on Thursday that it has "activated" Palestinian clans in Gaza as part of its war, confirming long-held suspicions that it is working with anti-Hamas groups. The announcement followed claims by a former Israeli minister, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu party, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the transfer of large quantities of arms to organised crime families in Gaza.
In a video posted online late on Thursday, Mr Netanyahu offered an explanation for his actions, saying the government was acting on the advice of 'security officials" to save the lives of Israeli soldiers.
But the sources said supporting anti-Hamas groups raised the spectre of civil strife in Gaza, pitting Hamas fighters against the groups at a time when the majority of the enclave's 2.3 million population are facing severe shortages of food, water, medicine and other essentials.
Israel last month eased a nearly two-month blockade on aid, but only a fraction of the supplies needed has since found its way to Palestinians.
The sources said the Yasser Abu Shabab gang, which has a track record of trafficking in drugs and arms, as well as black market profiteering, was also carrying out tasks on behalf of the Israeli military, including blowing up structures suspected of concealing the entrances of Hamas tunnels. The gang has also besieged suspected tunnel entrances, hoping to prevent supplies from reaching Hamas fighters inside, the sources added.
The sources could not ascertain the effectiveness of that anti-Hamas activity, but noted the group's weakness, estimating that it may have lost more than half of its fighters and a significant amount of its arsenal since the war began.
Israel has a record of empowering groups potentially dangerous to its security to weaken major enemies. Taking advantage of Gaza's woeful economy, it is also known to be running an elaborate network of paid spies in the enclave, providing real-time intelligence on the whereabouts of senior Hamas officials and the group's military wing.
Hamas dedicates a significant part of its policing capabilities to counter-espionage, hunting down informants and subjecting them to secret trials. It is known to have executed dozens of suspected spies since it took power in Gaza in 2007.
The sudden rise of the Yasser Abu Shabab gang is widely seen as an Israeli experiment in government by proxy. Gazan civilians told The National last week that they view such groups, not as a protective force, but as collaborators offering people false promises in exchange for political and social submission.
The gang claims to be guarding Israeli and US-backed food distribution centres in southern Gaza, but aid workers say it has a long history of looting UN lorries.
Gaza's armed groups have ties to powerful clans or extended families and often operate as criminal gangs. Aid workers have said Israel's backing of such groups is part of a wider effort to control all humanitarian operations in the enclave. Israel denies allowing looters to operate in areas it controls.
But with Hamas weakened after 20 months of war, gangs have regained the freedom to act. The leadership of several clans – including the one from which the Yasser Abu Shabab group's members hail – have issued statements denouncing looting and co-operation with Israel.
The group went public in early May, declaring itself a "nationalist force". It said it was protecting aid, including around food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a mainly American private contractor that Israel intends to replace the UN-led aid network.
Before the war, Yasser Abu Shabab was involved in smuggling cigarettes and drugs from Egypt and Israel into Gaza, according to two members of his extended family, one of whom was once part of his group. Hamas arrested him, but freed him from prison when the war began in October 2023, they said.
The conflict began when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostage. Israel's relentless military campaign has so far killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, Gaza's health authorities have said.
The conflict has displaced the majority of the its population and laid to waste much of the enclave's built-up areas.
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The National
38 minutes ago
- The National
'No accountability' for Beirut port blast as businesses reopen after self-funded rebuild
Victims of the Beirut port blast say they have not received promised insurance payouts and still await accountability for those responsible for the devastation − as impacted businesses continue to search for answers, reparations and justice, five years on. Much of the reconstruction was carried out by residents and business owners with support from Lebanese expatriate community, international aid agencies and NGOs, analysts say. The Beirut port explosion, triggered by improper storage of nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and flattened large parts of the capital on August 4, 2020. No high-ranking officials have been convicted over the blast. At the time, the World Bank estimated that the explosion caused losses of more than $8 billion, with severe damage to buildings and infrastructure, and economic decline from the numerous businesses affected. Lebanon's real gross domestic product contracted by 24.6 per cent in 2020, largely because of the blast, with a contraction of 33.2 per cent in the third quarter if that year, Beirut-based Byblos Bank said. 'There's been no accountability,' Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister and deputy governor of Lebanon's central bank, told The National f rom Beirut. The inquiry has repeatedly been hampered by political interference, legal challenges and the removal of lead investigators, leaving victims' families still searching for answers. Mr Saidi said: 'We have not seen a report, a verifiable report, of why the explosion took place. This issue of accountability is important because it covers the overall perception that things happen in Lebanon – disasters, economic collapse – and there is no accountability.' Who paid? The Lebanese government has failed to help businesses and people affected by the blast, Mr Saidi said. 'The state has been nearly absent. So what has happened is that it is the private-sector people who rebuilt their own lives and businesses and homes … supported by NGOs, charities and the like … and the Lebanese expatriate community was the main contributor to reconstruction,' he said. However, 'not everything has been rebuilt, but a good part of the homes and small businesses have started again and its mainly because of external finance,' Mr Saidi said. His own apartment was damaged in the blast and he rebuilt it himself. Lebanon was in the throes of economic crisis when the blast ripped through the port, with the Lebanese pound losing more than 90 per cent of its value against the US dollar on the black market after decades of financial mismanagement and corruption by ruling elite. The country's economy went into a tailspin after the government defaulted on about $31 billion of Eurobonds in March 2020. Lebanon's economy shrank about 58 per cent between 2019 and 2021, with its GDP plummeting to $21.8 billion in 2021, from about $52 billion in 2019, the World Bank said in a report in 2022, calling it the world's worst economic collapse since the 1850s. The Covid outbreak in early 2020 exacerbated the situation, with the private sector contracting amid a drop in demand and rising inflation. Food and dining, hospitality, retail, real estate and the commercial sector are those to have reopened for business. Michael Young, a senior editor at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, said he too had to spend his own savings to repair his damaged apartment. 'I was told the state would pay me a share and the army came twice to my home to assess damages. I didn't get a cent, however, and had to pay several thousand dollars out of my own pocket. I suspect this was widespread and many businesses simply closed, as the blast came on top of the financial collapse and Covid crisis,' he said. Calculating the cost The World Bank in a preliminary report after the blast put total estimated costs at $8.1 billion – $4.6 billion in damage to infrastructure and physical assets, and $3.5 billion in economic losses as a result of the decline in Lebanese output. Housing, transport and cultural assets, including religious and archaeological sites and national monuments, were badly affected. Physical damage in the housing sector was estimated at between $1.9 billion and $2.3 billion, the cultural sector at $1 billion to $1.2 billion, and the transport and ports sector at between $280 million and $345 million. The World Bank also estimated the damage to the tourism sector at between $170 million and $205 million, commerce and industry at between $105 million and $125 million, and health care at $95 million to $115 million. It put damage to the financial sector at between $10 million and $15 million. 'Beirut continues to grapple with the aftermath of the blast, especially in the areas most affected by the explosion,' said Samer Talhouk, senior economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. 'Some businesses in the affected areas have closed down permanently, while some damage can still be seen, especially in the lower income areas adjacent to the port.' Those who delivered Mr Talkhouk said economic activity in affected areas has recovered but not to pre-blast levels. 'There are some businesses that have closed permanently and not reopened, while new business have replaced some old ones in the area.' The rebuilding process has largely been driven by private initiatives, NGOs and international aid, rather than the Lebanese government, Mr Talhouk added. 'Many property owners and businesses relied on support from local and international NGOs, diaspora donations and some international agencies. A large portion of people affected have also relied on their savings to rebuild their damaged properties.' Lebanese banks' arbitrary restrictions on their clients' access to savings in their accounts complicated matters. On the first anniversary of the blast, the international community pledged about $370 million to help support Lebanon's reconstruction. French President Emmanuel Macron pledged $120 million, while Joe Biden, US president at the time, announced $100 million in aid. Germany, Kuwait, Canada and Sweden pledged $50 million, $30 million, $20 million and $14 million, respectively. 'There was lot of foreign aid, especially from Lebanese expatriates around the world, that poured in to support the affected families and neighbourhoods, and to fill the vacuum that the government at the time left behind,' said Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank. Port operations The Beirut port, which suffered extensive damage, has not resumed to full operations as the heavily destroyed part has yet to be rebuilt, Mr Ghobril said. The port suffered damage of about $350 million in the explosion, the World Bank said. The container processing section, however, is 'functioning normally, with the most recent figures showing the port of Beirut was the entry point for 61 per cent of Lebanon's merchandise imports in the first five months of 2025, while it was the exit point of 41.2 per cent of merchandise exports in the same period of time'. But the port has not just been overcoming the aftermath of the blast, it has also been dealing with Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping that have impacted the maritime industry, analysts say. In the second quarter of 2020, before the blast, Beirut port was ranked 120th in UNCTAD's Port Liner Shipping Connectivity Index. By the second quarter of 2025, the port's ranking had plummeted to 133rd. However, despite this most recent drop, the port's ranking had improved in to 85th position in the first quarter of 2024, indicating signs of recovery after the blast. However, this was undone by the impact of the Houthis' Red Sea attacks on shipping. 'The subsequent fall in ranking can very likely be attributed to the rerouting of ships due to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea,' Niels Rasmussen, Bimco's head of shipping market analysis, told The National. 'The re-routing not only reduced the number of ships transiting the Suez Canal but also the number of ships continuing into the Eastern Mediterranean after having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.' Business owners speak out Charbel Bassil, owner of Le Chef restaurant: Le Chef is one of Beirut's oldest restaurants owned by Charbel Bassil. It's a family-owned business that is very popular among tourists and locals for its homestyle dishes and affordable prices. Damage from the port explosion forced the popular Gemmayzeh spot to close down for the first time since Francois Bassil, Mr Charbel's father, opened the restaurant in 1967. When the blast happened, business was slow due to the coronavirus pandemic and Lebanon's economic crisis. Lockdown measures meant the restaurant was open only a few days a week, and would usually serve only a few tables. At the time of the explosion, Mr Charbel had two customers. The blast destroyed everything he and two of his staff were injured, one badly. The restaurant was shut down for four months. In December 2020, it was able to reopen with the help of a community fund-raiser launched by loyal customers. A generous donation of $5,000 by actor Russell Crowe helped Le Chef open its doors again. The Gladiator actor made the pledge in memory of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who featured Le Chef twice on his TV show No Reservations. Mr Bassil said: 'Some people called me and said they wanted to help us rebuild. I didn't know what to say, so I consulted my brother because we're a family business, and he said 'why not, whatever support people offer us, God will give them back twofold'.' 'We're blessed with people's love and support, we thank God for this gift and we thank God that we were able to survive this. 'Our plan was to work and rebuild with the money we make, this is how we have done it over the past decades, through all of Lebanon's crises. But we were open to people helping us and we appreciate it.' Business has since returned to normal but Mr Charbel says there's always a sense of fear in Lebanon of what comes next. 'We're tired, we just want some peace, we want calm, we're tired of all the crises. But regardless, we resist and we live, what else can we do?' He could not say how much the business had lost. Mohamad Al Ayan, owner of a convenience store: Mohamad Al Ayan, 38, who owns a convenience store in Sodeco in east Beirut, spoke of how he struggled to rebuild his damaged shop after the blast. The area is around 3km from the port but still suffered extensive damage. Although it was during the pandemic, he had permission to open until 3pm. 'It was the worst day of my life because we were stuck inside for 15 minutes, we didn't know what was going on. It was dark, there was screaming.' Initially he thought the city's tallest building, Sama Beirut, opposite the shop, had been bombed, such was the extent of the damage to his shop. 'It was like a nightmare,' he added. Mr Al Ayan stayed until midnight to fix his electricity feed and rebuild the front door so no one could break in. He remembers how all of the businesses and buildings in the area were 'broken', their shopfronts destroyed and glass shattered. Much of Al Ayan's inventory was destroyed and an expensive fridge was ripped from its position and flung outside by the blast. He doesn't remember exactly how much the damage cost but it was a lot for a small business. It would be at least two days until he could reopen. 'I paid a lot of money. Many thousands. No one gave me one dollar,' he said. He paid for everything himself and did not have any insurance. No one from the government came to offer support or visit. Some NGOs made inquiries but 'disappeared'. Mr Al Ayan has worked in the area for more than a decade and knows his fellow business owners well. He believed they were all in the same position, forced to fend for themselves. 'Beirut was destroyed. I don't want to remember anything, I don't want to be traumatised again. But everything after August 4 was changed. We are different people. They [the authorities] killed the fear inside us.' William Dobson, co-owner of Aaliya's Books: William Dobson, who was co-owner of the much-loved Aaliya's Books in Gemmayzeh, can tell you the rough financial cost the bookshop and cafe incurred when the Beirut blast came crashing through its doors and windows. In the aftermath, Aaliya's received £35,000 ($46,200) in donations from a crowdfunding campaign organised by a former customer based in the UK, $7,500 from a British government initiative that helped replenish its stock of books and a few thousand dollars from an insurance policy − the insurance company's own offices were badly damaged in the explosion. This was balanced against costs of about $100,000 − both for refurbishing Aaliya's and the impact of Covid-19 on business. But Mr Dobson says the greatest cost in many ways was the emotional toll from the unrelenting uncertainty brought by the explosion, Lebanon's economic crises, the pandemic and Israel's war in the country. Aaliya's managed to survive almost all of these, but finally closed in December 2024, as the impact of Israel's war against Hezbollah became just too much. 'Even post-explosion and post-recovery, what you end up losing is ambition,' said Mr Dobson. 'Ambition was lost, not just in terms of the people who were working for us and who saw less of a future for themselves, but also, I think, for us. We felt less ambitious in what we were able to achieve and we felt less confident in the thing that we were doing.' Aaliya's was set up in 2016 to be something new − a fresh space that allowed people to talk and express themselves, 'not driven by profit but driven by value'. Mr Dobson said he wanted the bookshop to be somewhere where people could thrive; where they could 'start off as a busboy and become a manager'. 'When you're trying to do something and you think you're making a difference and you see the differences that you are making. You're seeing people read, you're seeing people coming to storytelling nights,' he said. Mr Dobson recalled when Aaliya's first opened, 300 people came to storytelling event by a collective called Cliffhangers. 'It was kind of indicative of something more compelling, that there was a yearning for spaces like this in the city and at a specific moment in time,' he said. 'And that became harder to justify after the explosion. Because it almost felt like, what's the point in making micro-improvements when you can see every single one of those improvements disintegrate − both literally and figuratively − in the space of 30 seconds.'
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
How Beirut port explosion survivor Bachir Ramadan is turning trauma into testimony
August 4, 2020 started out, by all accounts, as a beautiful day. Bachir Ramadan remembers helping a colleague secure a promotion by pleading his case to the boss at a lighting factory near Beirut Port. Afterwards, he popped home for a quick lunch with his former partner. They talked about the weekend's plans before he walked back to the office. A few hours later, the Beirut port district exploded – killing more than 200 people, injuring thousands, and devastating surrounding neighbourhoods. Ramadan, a lighting technician and renowned drummer in Lebanon's tight-knit heavy metal scene, was 800 metres from the epicentre. He recalls a casual conversation cut short by a blinding light, a thundering sound, and the four-storey office building partly caving in. Windows shattered. Somehow, he emerged from the wreckage dazed and bloodied. He spent the next three days in hospital, where glass was removed from his face and eyes. Doctors treated him for several skull fractures and nerve damage to his hands. 'It was a beautiful day,' Ramadan recalls five years later. 'Until it wasn't.' In the months that followed, Ramadan, 36, forced himself behind the drum kit. First as rehabilitation to rebuild motor function in his damaged hands, then as survival. But the recovery was never linear. It stopped and started, the pain lingering like a muted backbeat that never fully faded. Five years on, a few gentle scars remain on his cheekbones where glass was removed, and on his shoulders. The emotional healing, however, is still a work in progress. 'I feel like the healing stopped for a long time,' he says now, speaking from his apartment in Doha, Qatar, where he moved in October. 'I think it was because I was too preoccupied with other things, like wanting to get out of Lebanon.' Those feelings would rise each weekday morning in Beirut, when Ramadan drove past the mangled silos at the port on his way to work. 'It wore me down,' he says. 'It was heavy, emotional, and negative every single time I saw it. I needed to take that out of the equation.' Ramadan moved to Doha after landing a job in sales. It wasn't a creative role, but it offered distance. And in that solitude – away from the bustle of Beirut's social scene and bereft of his drum kit – Ramadan began scribbling notes and reflections that are now forming the basis of a memoir to be published later this year. 'I never meant to write a book,' Ramadan says. 'But being away from the drums, I needed another outlet. So I started writing in April. And when I got to the chapter about August 4 … man, it hit me hard.' The English-language memoir, Obsidian Tempo, will be released through a Lebanese publisher, with details to be announced soon, Ramadan says. Named after volcanic rock, the book blends personal history with practical insight on navigating a music career in Lebanon. Given the trauma the writing unearthed, Ramadan sees its release as a kind of survival document. 'It was painful to write,' he says. 'But it felt like therapy. Actually, better than therapy. The healing didn't just restart, it went full throttle.' Unlike drumming, which provided immediate physical catharsis, writing forced him to slow down and sit with the memories.' I had to really dig into those memories,' he says. 'The smell, the grey smoke, the rubble of that day – it all came back and gave the writing its shape.' The post-blast period marked not just a change in medium, but in sound. In place of the thunderous riffs and double-kick drums of heavy metal, he opted to listen to a more gentle soundtrack. 'My healing music became Nordic folk,' he says. 'It grounds me. It makes me feel present. Metal never gave me that kind of calm.' It's a striking shift from someone long associated with Beirut's underground scene – one that, even before the explosion, struggled with visibility and support. Gigs were largely self-funded, venues were limited and metal musicians often balanced multiple jobs to sustain their work. The port blast scattered what little infrastructure there was. 'It took a lot out of the scene,' Ramadan says. 'People left. Bands paused. It will take some time to get back to where it was.' Still, Ramadan kept playing for a time. He hasn't performed live since January, when he flew back to Beirut for one final show with his former band, Khavar. 'I hadn't touched the drums at the time in four months. But the body remembered. One rehearsal and it all came back. That muscle memory was just magical.' He no longer plays regularly as the drums remain in Beirut and his apartment in Doha too small for a kit. 'And that's fine for me as I have a different focus now,' he says. 'Writing is my way to get through the hard days and difficult moments.' Memories of that day remain an open topic of conversation among some friends and colleagues in Beirut. 'We don't avoid it at all and I've found that talking about it actually helps,' Ramadan says. 'You get to hear someone else's take on what happened and sometimes that perspective can clear up some of the things in your own mind.' One conversation, however, two days after the explosion still stays with him. 'I remember a former bandmate telling me, quite frankly: 'Just be thankful you're alive.' And you know what, that really stuck. I wear my scars, but I'm here. I can still do everything I love. I'm grateful.' But gratitude doesn't erase the anger he feels at the authorities, and the absence of official accountability. 'We still don't know the truth about who caused this,' he says. 'Those behind what happened should be held responsible in the worst way. They destroyed lives.'
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
US envoy Witkoff GHF's aid site visit denounced as 'PR stunt'
On Friday, US envoy Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited an aid site in southern Gaza run by the scandal-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. At least 859 Palestinians have been gunned down by Israeli soldiers while attempting to receive aid parcels at the distribution points. Witkoff said the purpose of the trip was to give Trump "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza". 'Incredible feat!' Huckabee said in a post on X on Friday, after touring GHF's operations and speaking to "folks on the ground". Palestinians denounced the visit as a PR stunt. 'It was a PR stunt, a controlled visit supervised and dictated by the Israeli military,' Ellie Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told NBC News. 'What they saw was not the reality.' Amer Khayrat, a father of two who lives in Gaza City, told the BBC: "What Gaza needs isn't another envoy with a press team. We need the siege lifted, the bombing stopped and the blind American support for this war brought to an end." Scott Paul, Oxfam's Americas director of peace and security, told the BBC that Witkoff and Huckabee would have been "confronted by scenes of countless Palestinian children and their families on the brink of starvation displaced in flattened communities outside their convoy windows". "This must be what finally spurs the US to use its full influence to put an end to this catastrophe before we pass the point of no return," he added. On Saturday, Witkoff met with families of Israeli captives held in Gaza in Tel Aviv, as hundreds took to the streets to demand a ceasefire deal, the Israeli daily Haaretz is reporting. The visit shortly followed footage of emaciated Israeli captives, Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski published by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Witkoff assured the families that US will push for a single hostage deal. In a recording of the meeting, Witkoff can be heard saying that "Hamas has said that they are prepared to be demilitarised" and that "multiple Arab governments are now demanding Hamas demilitarise". "We are very, very close to a solution to end this war," he said, adding that "we don't believe that Hamas speaks for the people ... We believe that they have very little political support". Hamas responded with a statement saying : "We reiterate that resistance and disarmament are a national and legal right as long as the occupation continues. "This right is recognised in international treaties and norms, and cannot be waived except upon the achievement of all our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital."
