Israel said Hamas was looting aid — then it armed the gangs who were actually stealing it

RNZ News

a day ago

Mohammad Salman says the bandits who raid aid convoys call themselves "the ones who block the roads".
Photo:
ABC News
By
Eric Tlozek
and
Chérine Yazbeck,
ABC
Groups of men huddle around fires, waiting for aid trucks to roll through central Gaza.
Some of them used to be teachers and other professionals.
Now they have banded together to form gangs and raid aid convoys.
The scene is like one from the Mad Max movies, a dystopian setting where there are no rules.
"We are a group of men organised into crews - we call ourselves 'the ones who block the roads'," one of the men, Mohammad Salman, told the
ABC
.
"If you want to get aid and secure food, you have to come through here; otherwise you won't eat.
"Today, all these people have become gangsters. They seize food from trucks and anything they find on the road. They'll take food away from anyone. If someone grabs food from a truck and I don't get my share, I'll go after him.
"That's how we have become. If someone gets something, I will take it from him to eat.
"Some people here die from stabbings and attacks - all over food. We've all turned into mafias and road blockers."
Some of the men say they have worked with a gang leader named Yasser Abu Shabab.
Once a wanted criminal, it's now widely believed that Abu Shabab has been armed and protected by the Israeli government - to take control of the part of southern Gaza where his family holds sway.
Abu Shabab is apparently an unlikely figure to lead a resistance against Hamas's rule in Gaza, Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in
The New Arab
.
"Police in Gaza were perplexed when he emerged as a top gang leader. The security source told
The New Arab
that Abu Shabab is 35-years-old, thin, weak, short [around 150 centimetres tall], uncharismatic, illiterate, has strabismus in one eye, and has never received military training," he said.
"To them, he didn't seem like someone with the leadership skills necessary to form a group of 300 armed militants, steal truckloads of aid, and store it under the radar."
Israeli media have reported Abu Shabab escaped from jail with Israeli assistance early in the war.
"He was in a Hamas prison until October 2023 for theft and drug offences, and his release came under the cover of an Israeli attack on security facilities in the Strip at the beginning of the war. From that moment on, his name emerged as someone who would fill the security vacuum in eastern Rafah," the Israeli newspaper
Maariv
wrote.
The UN says Yasser Abu Shabab's gang has been raiding aid trucks with the apparent indifference or protection of the Israeli military.
Photo:
Supplied / Facebook
The United Nations has identified Abu Shabab's gang as one of those raiding aid convoys when they entered Gaza, saying they were doing so with the apparent protection or indifference of the Israeli military.
Former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filliu, who spent one month in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders from December 2024 to January 2025, said he witnessed the gang being protected by the IDF while looting trucks.
"The Israeli military recognised its inability to promote a clan-based alternative to Hamas and decided to rely more or less openly on organised crime," he wrote in
Le Monde
.
"The key figure in this manoeuvre was a previously minor member of a Rafah family, Yasser Abu Shabab, whom Hamas had imprisoned in the past for his various trafficking activities. But Israeli protection allowed Abu Shabab to substantially expand its activities and poach, from other clans, some 100 loyalists ready for anything, often ex-convicts.
"What could only be called a gang operated under the eyes of the Israeli army - and it was equipped with brand-new weapons, an irrefutable indication of its collaboration with the occupiers."
A gang member confirmed to the
ABC
that Abu Shabab's group had been stealing and selling aid.
"People would work normally with Yasser just like employees. He had two shifts. It was easy," the gang member said.
"We used to stand by the roadside to wait for trucks from Gaza to Kerem Shalom. I would take whatever I could - flour, sugar, anything we needed."
The man explained that much of the looted food was then sold to merchants, although he insisted aid groups were given some of it.
"They would unload the goods, and traders would come to buy them. Half of the supplies were distributed to institutions like schools," he said.
"The aid agency would arrive to collect its share and then distribute it to schools."
Gangs waiting to loot aid trucks at the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
Photo:
ABC News
The gang member alleged Hamas had previously been stealing some aid, something the group denies.
"He [Yasser] was working in security when he saw the government and Hamas members stealing from the aid trucks as they passed through central Gaza and Nuseirat," he told the
ABC
.
"That's when he decided to take action - stealing the trucks to distribute some of the aid himself, handing out money, flour - and that was it."
Abu Shabab and his men, now calling 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 said openly it has backed groups like the one Abu Shabab runs.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in June that his government had "activated" clans in Gaza opposed to Hamas.
That sparked concerns from the opposition that their weapons could eventually be turned on the IDF, or used to create unmanageable chaos.
"In consultation with security officials, we made use of clans in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas," he said in a video on social media.
"What's wrong with that? It saves the lives of IDF soldiers."
The Times
of Israel said Defence officials had confirmed Netanyahu was referring to the Abu Shabab gang.
"The sources confirmed that Israel has been arming the gang with Kalashnikov rifles, including some that were seized from Hamas during the ongoing war," it wrote on 5 June.
Former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has alleged Abu Shabab had ties to the IS terrorist group.
"The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State, at the direction of the prime minister," he told Israeli public radio.
The Abu Shabab group was alleged to be providing security for the new, Israeli and US-backed food distribution operation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Some of the gangs looting aid have reportedly been armed and protected by Israeli authorities.
Photo:
ABC News
It denied any links with the gang.
"GHF has no association with Yasser or the 'Anti-Terror Service'," it said in a statement sent to the
ABC
.
Hamas fighters have attacked the group, but said Israeli forces came to its defence, Israeli media reported.
The arrival of the new aid operation has changed conditions in the south of Gaza, but Hamas is still keen to kill or imprison Abu Shabab again.
On 2 July, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in Gaza gave Abu Shabab 10 days to surrender himself and face trial for treason.
The
ABC
called and sent messages to Yasser Abu Shabab but did not receive a response.
Comment has also been sought from the Israeli government and the IDF.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government and military continue to dismiss United Nations reports of a worsening hunger crisis in Gaza.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is only distributing food parcels at limited locations in southern and central Gaza.
Israel's government last month stopped allowing food shipments into the north.
The "men who block the roads" are still waiting by the aid routes, hoping for any chance to seize supplies and stay alive.