Netanyahu admits supporting anti-Hamas Gaza militants: ‘What is bad about that?'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to supporting an armed Gaza group.
Israel has been working with part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
Netanyahu should end the Gaza war, said former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes the militant group Hamas, following comments by a former minister that Israel had transferred weapons to it.
Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a 'criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks'.
Knesset member and ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu's direction, was 'giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons'.
'What did Lieberman leak? ... That on the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What is bad about that?' Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media.
'It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers.'
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Centre in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans across the border between Gaza and Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
Some of the tribe's members, he said, were involved in 'all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that'.
AFP
Milshtein said that Abu Shabab had spent time in prison in Gaza and that his clan chiefs had recently denounced him as an Israeli 'collaborator and a gangster'.
'It seems that actually the Shabak (Israeli security agency) or the (military) thought it was a wonderful idea to turn this militia, gang actually, into a proxy, to give them weapons and money and shelter' from army operations, Milshtein said.
He added that Hamas killed four members of the gang days ago.
The ECFR said Abu Shabab was 'reported to have been previously jailed by Hamas for drug smuggling. His brother is said to have been killed by Hamas during a crackdown against the group's attacks on UN aid convoys.'
Israel regularly accuses Hamas, with which it has been at war for nearly 20 months, of looting aid convoys in Gaza.
Hamas said the group had 'chosen betrayal and theft as their path' and called on civilians to oppose them.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, said it had evidence of 'clear coordination between these looting gangs, collaborators with the occupation (Israel), and the enemy army itself in the looting of aid and the fabrication of humanitarian crises that deepen the suffering of' Palestinians.
The Popular Forces, as Abu Shabab's group calls itself, said on Facebook it had 'never been, and will never be, a tool of the occupation'.
'Our weapons are simple, outdated, and came through the support of our own people,' it added.
Milshtein called Israel's decision to arm a group such as Abu Shabab 'a fantasy, not something that you can really describe as a strategy'.
I really hope it will not end with catastrophe.
Michael Milshtein
US President Donald Trump should tell Netanyahu 'enough is enough', a former Israeli prime minister told AFP, denouncing the continuation of the war in Gaza as a 'crime' and insisting a two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict.
Ehud Olmert, prime minister from 2006-2009, said in an interview in Paris that the US has more influence on the Israeli government 'than all the other powers put together' and that Trump can 'make a difference'.
He said Netanyahu 'failed completely' as a leader by not preventing the 7 October 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the war.
He said while the international community accepted Israel's right to self-defence after 7 October, this changed when Netanyahu spurned chances to end the war in March and instead ramped up operations.
John Wessels/AFP
Netanyahu 'has his personal interests which are prioritised over what may be the national interests', Olmert charged.
Analysts say Netanyahu fears that if he halts the war, hardline members of his coalition will walk out, collapsing the government and forcing elections he could lose.
Trump should summon Netanyahu to the White House Oval Office and facing cameras, tell the Israeli leader: 'Bibi: enough is enough,' Olmert said, using the premier's nickname.
'This is it. I hope he (Trump) will do it. There is nothing that cannot happen with Trump. I don't know if this will happen. We have to hope and we have to encourage him,' said Olmert.
Despite occasional expressions of concern about the situation in Gaza, the US remains Israel's key ally, using its veto at the UN Security Council and approving billions of dollars in arms sales.
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