Israeli-Backed Gaza Faction Leader Reported Killed in Rafah Shooting By The Media Line Staff Israeli officials are assessing reports that Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian militia leader who cooperated with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip, was shot dead on Thursday in the Rafah area of Gaza. Abu Shabab headed an armed group known as […]
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The Media Line: Israeli-Backed Gaza Faction Leader Reported Killed in Rafah Shooting
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Israeli-Backed Gaza Faction Leader Reported Killed in Rafah Shooting
By The Media Line Staff
Israeli officials are assessing reports that Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian militia leader who cooperated with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip, was shot dead on Thursday in the Rafah area of Gaza. Abu Shabab headed an armed group known as the Popular Forces, which operated in eastern Rafah under Israeli protection and received weapons and other support from Israeli forces.
According to Israeli assessments cited in Hebrew media, gunmen opened fire on Abu Shabab in eastern Rafah, killing him in an apparent assassination. The incident is believed to have taken place in an area of Gaza where Israeli troops have maintained a presence and where Abu Shabab’s clan is based, but there has been no official public attribution of responsibility for the attack. Israeli defense authorities are still working to verify the circumstances of his death but it is believed to be the result of an internal conflict.
Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces emerged during the Israel–Hamas war as a local partner to Israel in parts of southern Gaza, where the group helped Israel exert control and was widely accused by Palestinian sources of involvement in looting aid convoys. Analysts describe Abu Shabab as coming from a prominent Bedouin clan within the larger Tarabin tribe, with a past that included criminal allegations and a period of imprisonment under Hamas rule before he escaped during the conflict.