In an attempt to spread chaos, fracture Palestinian society from within and avoid sending its own soldiers deeper into the Gaza Strip, Israel has, since the second half of 2024, sought to recruit large numbers of Gazans to work within militias operating on its behalf inside the territory.
Through these armed groups, which appeared in the southern city of Rafah after Israel’s invasion in June 2024, Israel carried out several kidnapping and assassination operations targeting resistance leaders, journalists and doctors, according to information obtained by Al Jazeera from two individuals who had worked inside these militias.
According to the testimonies given by the two individuals to Al Jazeera, these militias built their recruitment plans around deceiving Gazans with promises of a comfortable life that was completely different from the hardship experienced by the population under Israeli siege.
Fragmenting Society
In reality, Israel does not provide an easy life for those who collaborate with it. Rather, it exploits Palestinians’ need for food and medicine to recruit them, a method that is not new, according to Israeli affairs expert Dr Muhannad Mustafa, who said the history of occupation is full of blackmail.
Mustafa told Al Jazeera that blackmail has long been part of Israeli occupation policy. However, he said the current situation is different because this is the first time Israel has turned collaborators into armed militias tasked with spreading chaos, terror and instability within Palestinian society on its behalf.
For this reason, Israel demands the disarmament of the resistance while making no such demand regarding these militias, which it uses to compensate for its inability to send soldiers deep into the Gaza Strip under the ceasefire.
According to Mustafa, every act carried out by these militias, including killings, kidnappings and the spread of chaos, forms part of Israel’s policy of punishment against Gazans since 7 October 2023. He added that the occupation had not been able to recruit high-value collaborators inside Gaza before that date.
Today, however, the Israeli military presence inside the territory has helped Israel use these militias to carry out many tasks on behalf of occupation soldiers, Mustafa said.
Political analyst Iyad Al-Qara offered a similar assessment, saying these militias include groups of thieves and individuals who had been wanted by Gaza’s security services on charges of collaboration before the war.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Al-Qara pointed to the fact that these groups fled beyond the yellow line, into areas controlled by the occupation, as soon as they were identified and reported. However, he does not deny that they were part of Israel’s broader effort to destabilise the Gaza Strip.
Israel supported these groups on the ground by assassinating police and internal security leaders, while targeting anyone attempting to confront them. Al-Qara said these groups are trying to implement the kind of developments Benjamin Netanyahu said would take place in Gaza for the first time.
Although the resistance succeeded in dealing with some of these collaborators through tribal communication, taking Gaza’s social fabric into account, it failed to deal with most of them because of the Israeli military cover protecting them.
Acting on Behalf of the Occupation
Images and information obtained by Al Jazeera indicate that these groups carried out kidnappings, assassinations, intelligence gathering, searches for resistance tunnels and even movements alongside Israeli forces in some areas.
These militias operate through direct communication and coordination with the Israeli side. They receive their instructions from an officer named Imran, who one of the two individuals who spoke to Al Jazeera said was responsible for managing the leaders of these groups.
The first signs of activity by these groups appeared when they began seizing aid trucks intended for civilians, before later becoming more organised and widespread.
In July of the same year, these groups appeared more structured with the rise of the group led by Yasser Abu Shabab, who was killed in December 2025. Ghassan Al-Duhaini then assumed leadership of the militia in his place.
From Rafah, these militias expanded into Khan Younis under the leadership of Hussam Al-Astal. From there, they moved into the central governorate under Ahmad Abu Nasira, also known as Shawqi Abu Nasira, before reaching Gaza City under the leadership of Rami Helles and the northern Gaza Strip under Ashraf Al-Mansi.
