The leader of an anti-Hamas group that was armed and backed by Israel has been killed in Gaza, the group confirmed Thursday, in a potential blow to Israel’s post-war plans in the shattered territory.
Yasser Abu Shabab, who led a militia controlling a patch of territory in Rafah in southern Gaza, was killed while trying to “de-escalate a conflict” between members of a family in a public square, the organization said. One Israeli source said earlier the death resulted from “internal clashes.”
Two Israeli sources said that Israel tried to evacuate Abu Shabab to a hospital in the country’s south before he was pronounced dead.
Abu Shabab was the leader of the most prominent of several Israeli-backed armed groups in Gaza, and his death could prove to be a setback to Israel’s still-unclear plans for the future of the enclave. Abu Shabab, who was in his early 30s, appeared to be spreading his reach slowly in southern Gaza as he tried to carve out an area free of Hamas. Israel intended to use Abu Shabab’s militia to weaken Hamas, as an alternative to the militant group’s Islamist rule.
Israel also planned to use Abu Shabab’s organization, which he called the “Popular Forces,” to secure reconstruction projects inside Israeli-occupied Gaza under the next phase of the ceasefire deal. During the last several months of the war, Abu Shabab helped control the flow of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza.
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