[News] Inside Hamas’s fight against the armed militias that Israel is using to sow chaos in Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2026/05/exclusive-inside-hamass-fight-against-the-armed-militias-that-israel-is-using-to-sow-chaos-in-gaza/?ml_recipient=186356405207303582&ml_link=186356350928815421&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-05-02&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation+-+8am>
Exclusive: Inside Hamas’s fight against the armed militias that Israel is
using to sow chaos in Gaza
Faris Giacaman
May 1, 2026
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

The National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans, and Families organized
a demonstration in Gaza protesting the Israeli army’s ongoing targeting of
Palestinian police officers, Gaza City, April 19, 2026. (Photo: Anas
Nour/APA Images)

On Monday, April 20, a convoy of vehicles rolled through Khan Younis in
southern Gaza, carrying armed, masked men. They belonged to an
Israeli-backed militia that typically operates in the part of Gaza that
falls under Israeli military control, east of the so-called “Yellow Line
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/theres-a-yellow-line-dividing-gaza-is-it-here-to-stay/>”
that cuts Gaza roughly in half. Their appearance in the part of Khan Younis
under Hamas control was a direct provocation.

In a widely-circulated video
<https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122213425496516093&id=61565482817230&mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=VzgINio2auCQxoRh&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fr%2F1YmFRMZL4z%2F%3Fmibextid%3DwwXIfr>
on social media, one of the gunmen stepped out and addressed the crowd.
“Hamas is over. We are the people, and the people are us; we will protect
you from Hamas terrorism.”

The incursion did not go unanswered. Hamas security forces appeared and
fired shells and heavy gunfire at the vehicles as intense clashes broke
out, according to videos <https://fb.watch/GNNzqWoSpA/> circulated on
social media. A Hamas-affiliated Telegram channel called Radea, which
emerged in 2025 to track and pursue collaborators, described the response
to the incursion as an ambush.

These groups are part of a broader Israeli strategy that Gaza security
officers say they’ve been confronting since the beginning of the war: the
systematic targeting of police and security personnel to create a vacuum
that the militias can fill.

“When the right moment came, Radea fighters opened fire on the
collaborators’ vehicles, directly striking the first vehicle and then
targeting the second and third, leaving them dead and wounded, while the
others fled under the cover of enemy aircraft,” the channel stated. “Israel
will not protect you. Our fighters are lying in wait for you.”

The incursion came one day after Ghassan al-Duheini, head of the
Israeli-armed “Popular Forces” group, announced on his Facebook page the
launching of what he called Operation Deter the Aggressors. The Popular
Forces were previously led by gang leader and Israeli collaborator Yasser
Abu Shabab before he was reportedly killed
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/gaza-gang-leader-and-israeli-collaborator-yasser-abu-shabab-has-been-killed-reports-say/>
by his own associates last December. Hamas government officials previously
told *Mondoweiss*
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/hamas-is-hunting-down-groups-in-gaza-that-collaborated-with-the-israeli-army-one-by-one/>
that the group is the largest, best-equipped, and most dangerous militia
operating in Gaza.

Today, most of these groups operate in the eastern sectors of Gaza that
fall under Israeli military control. These include al-Duheini’s Popular
Forces in Rafah and Khan Younis, Hussam al-Astal’s “Anti-Terror Strike
Force,” and the so-called “Popular Defense Forces” led by Rami Hilles in
Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Hilles and Astal are reportedly both
former employees of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.

The existence of these groups is part of a broader Israeli strategy that
Gaza security officers say they’ve been confronting since the beginning of
the war: the systematic targeting of police and security personnel
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/israel-is-creating-a-power-vacuum-in-gaza-by-backing-armed-looters-and-killing-anyone-who-tries-to-stop-them/>
to create a vacuum that the militias can fill.

*Mondoweiss* spoke with several Hamas security leaders and police officers
in Gaza about how they are facing the latest stage in the ongoing Israeli
campaign to target their personnel, foment chaos, and strengthen the
position of the militias.
*‘It’s not aimed at Hamas’*

For months, Hamas security forces have worked to control movement across
the Yellow Line between the Israeli-controlled part of the Strip and the
remaining part of the territory still under Hamas. Their aim was to monitor
and restrict entry points through which collaborators could infiltrate
displacement camps, but Israel has repeatedly struck Hamas police positions
when they appear.

Abu Abdullah (not his real name), a Hamas government official in Khan
Younis who spoke to *Mondoweiss* on the condition of anonymity, said that
the targeting of uniformed personnel has forced much of the police force to
work undercover. But this isn’t always possible. “When we are in hospitals
and displacement camps, we don our uniforms to give people a sense of
safety, and to send a message that we are here to protect them,” he
explained. “But the occupation targets us at all times and places,
regardless of the surroundings or collateral damage.”

In one such attack on Friday, April 24, an Israeli airstrike targeted a
police position in Khan Younis, killing four police officers and four
civilians who happened to be nearby.
[image: Palestinians bid farewell to the bodies of eight Palestinians
killed in an Israeli strike targeting a police vehicle in the Mawasi area
of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, April 25, 2026. (Photo: Tariq
Mohammad/APA Images)]Palestinians bid farewell to the bodies of eight
Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike targeting a police vehicle in the
Mawasi area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, April 25, 2026. (Photo:
Tariq Mohammad/APA Images)

The following day, the Islamic and National factions in Gaza held a joint
press conference in Khan Younis to formally reject the targeting of police
forces, calling the strikes an attempt to incite chaos and destabilize
internal security.

“Israel wants Palestinians to kill each other and steal from one another.
It wants to destroy security in our society so it can control us,” Jehad
al-Qatatti, a member of the Higher Committee of the National and Islamic
factions, told *Mondoweiss*. “Targeting the police is designed to fracture
society and hand over control to the militias. We will not allow that.”

Abu Abdallah echoed a similar sentiment. “The targeting is not aimed at
Hamas — it’s aimed at any effort made to protect civilians in Gaza,” he
said. “It seeks to prevent any Palestinian entity from establishing its
authority over the Strip.”

Abu Hamza, a captain in Gaza City, said Israeli strikes consistently target
recently appointed personnel — those who are newer, less experienced, and
more visible. He explained that the ranks of Gaza’s police forces were
thinned in light of Israel’s onslaught, but that thousands of new police
officers continued to be recruited throughout the war. “Some of them are
inexperienced and are temporarily filling these positions to compensate for
the losses,” Abu Hamza said. For these positions, he added, young men with
clean records and no known Israeli surveillance history are prioritized.

Despite the losses, Hamas says its command structure has not collapsed. “We
have established procedures that are implemented whenever any leader,
police officer, or administrator is killed: qualified individuals assume
responsibilities immediately. Each position has multiple deputies, and
duties are transferred in succession,” Abu Hamza said. “This is an
emergency arrangement imposed by the conditions of war to prevent the
collapse of the security and policing system.”
[image: The National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans, and Families
organized a demonstration in Gaza protesting the Israeli army's ongoing
targeting of Palestinian police officers, Gaza City, April 19, 2026.
(Photo: Anas Nour/APA Images)]The National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes,
Clans, and Families organized a demonstration in Gaza protesting the
Israeli army’s ongoing targeting of Palestinian police officers, Gaza City,
April 19, 2026. (Photo: Anas Nour/APA Images) *The war on Gaza’s police*

The roots of the ongoing confrontation between Hamas and the militias go
back to the early stages of the genocide in Gaza. By June 2025, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed
<https://web-wp.archive.org/web/20251007233617/https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-providing-guns-to-gaza-jihadist-gang-to-bolster-opposition-to-hamas/>
that he had “activated” clans in Gaza opposed to Hamas rule. These groups
were used by the Israeli military to conduct abduction and assassination
operations and to loot aid convoys during the war and the famine that
followed.

In response, Gaza’s Interior Ministry formed a special plainclothes unit in
early 2024 called the Arrow Force, tasked with hunting down looters and
collaborators operating under Israeli protection. In a June 2025
*Mondoweiss* investigation
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/inside-the-hamas-unit-fighting-israeli-armed-gangs-that-loot-aid-and-facilitate-displacement-in-gaza/>
into the unit’s operations, an Arrow member described going to a food
warehouse in Gaza City where armed thieves were attempting to steal aid,
only to be bombed by an Israeli drone when they arrived. “When the Arrow
Forces arrived, the thieves withdrew, and the Force was targeted,” he said.
“Then, another unit was dispatched to the site to support the Force, but it
was bombed by the occupation as well.”
[image: Palestinian police set up a checkpoint on al-Rashid Street
separating southern Gaza from the north, January 25, 2025. (Photo: Omar
Ashtawy/APA Images)]Palestinian police set up a checkpoint on al-Rashid
Street separating southern Gaza from the north, January 25, 2025. (Photo:
Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

The Arrow Unit was reactivated after Israel resumed its assault in March
2025 and the militias re-emerged under Israeli cover, but the assault on
Israeli-armed militias truly picked up steam after Hamas launched a
wide-ranging
security campaign
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/exclusive-new-hamas-crackdown-on-gaza-militias-will-be-largest-yet-security-source-says/>
to hunt them down when the ceasefire with Israel went into effect last
October.

But the armed groups continued to receive Israeli support, while Hamas
forces continued to be targeted by Israeli strikes, despite the
“ceasefire.” Since then, the Israeli army has systematically attempted to
intervene whenever Hamas security forces are exposed on the ground, sending
in drones to strike them. And the militias are growing more aggressive in
confronting Hamas’s presence, most recently manifesting in Ghassan
al-Duheini’s Operation Deter the Aggressors.
*‘We say goodbye to our families every day’*

Today, the security situation is “on the edge,” as an official at the
Ministry of Interior, Abu Ahmad, put it. He described what daily work now
looks like: police officers move through the streets in civilian clothes,
carrying concealed pistols. Members of the Qassam Brigades, the military
wing of Hamas, do the same. “The plan involves both morning and evening
surveillance shifts. Everyone moves armed through Gaza’s streets as a
precaution,” he said.

Abu Ahmad recounted a kidnapping attempt against one of his colleagues in
the Qassam Brigades earlier this week. Militia members tried to abduct him
in a densely populated area in central Gaza City. He survived because he
was armed and colleagues were nearby.

The stakes are not abstract. “We say goodbye to our families every day we
go to work,” Abu Ahmad said. “We know that if we leave, we may not return.
We regard ourselves as martyrs-in-waiting.”
[image: Palestinians bid farewell to the bodies of eight Palestinians
killed in an Israeli strike targeting a police vehicle in the Mawasi area
of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, April 25, 2026. (Photo: Tariq
Mohammad/APA Images)]Palestinians bid farewell to the bodies of eight
Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike targeting a police vehicle in the
Mawasi area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, April 25, 2026. (Photo:
Tariq Mohammad/APA Images)

Israeli intelligence, he said, sends them regular threats via text messages
and calls from unknown numbers, warning them that they and their families
have been targeted. “But we refuse to respond to those messages under any
pressure and continue to carry out our national and humanitarian duty.”

These attacks have weakened security and police control over the Green
Zones, and at times, have forced a pullback. They have also reduced the
police’s ability to pursue criminal elements, enforce the law, and carry
out detention orders, a reality they have lived with since the outbreak of
war. But everyone *Mondoweiss* spoke with insisted on continuing without
retreat.

Since October 2023, at least 770 police officers have been killed on duty
across the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas government figures. The dead
include officers killed at checkpoints, at police positions, and in the
streets while working in plainclothes. In nearly every case, Hamas says,
the strikes came when officers were actively pursuing or positioning
against the militias.

“There is a clear message that our presence as security forces and police
is a target for Israel,” Abu Ahmad said. The strikes are signals, he said,
aimed at preventing security forces from asserting control and maintaining
order. This is the new stage in Israel’s broader bid to end Hamas rule and
force disarmament.

“We receive numerous calls and threats to kill our families, but we refuse
to yield to these pressures,” Abu Ahmad said. “Our duty is to enforce
security, and in every war, many members of the police and security forces
are killed. This is our work, and we will not retreat from it. The
occupation will not succeed in imposing its control or breaking our will.”
------------------------------

*Tareq S. Hajjaj*
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Gaza Correspondent for Mondoweiss and a member of
the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter/X at @Tareqshajjaj
<https://twitter.com/Tareqshajjaj>.
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