SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Julia Frankel, Samy Magdy and Sam Mednick
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has “activated” some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, in the first public acknowledgment that Israel is backing armed Palestinian groups in Gaza.
Netanyahu made the comments on social media on Friday (AEST), as the Trump administration said it was imposing sanctions on four judges from the International Criminal Court, including two who issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest last year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem last month.Credit: AP
It is not immediately clear what role the Palestinian groups – based around powerful clans or extended families – were playing in Gaza, but one Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Netanyahu was referring to the so-called Popular Forces led by a Rafah clan leader, Yasser Abu Shabab.
That group has said its fighters were helping protect aid shipments to the new Israeli-backed food distribution centres, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but some Palestinians say the Abu Shabab group has also been involved in attacking and looting aid convoys.
Such clans often wield some control in corners of Gaza, and some have had clashes or tensions with Hamas in the past. Palestinians and aid workers have accused clans of carrying out criminal attacks and stealing aid from trucks. Several clans have issued public statements rejecting co-operation with the Israelis or denouncing looting.
Israeli tanks take up position near the GHF aid hub in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.Credit: AP
In recent weeks, the Abu Shabab group announced online that its fighters were helping protect shipments to the new, food distribution centres
Israel set up the new aid distribution system using GHF after claiming that Hamas was seizing the aid brought into Gaza by other aid groups like the United Nations, which has denied the allegation. The UN and other aid groups are refusing to work with GHF, saying it breaches humanitarian principles.
The new system has been marred by chaos, with dozens killed since its inception last week, while attempting to get aid. Witnesses say Israeli forces have fired on crowds gathered near the distribution centres, but Israel says its troops have only fired warning shots. GHF paused aid delivery earlier this week in wake of the deaths, but resumed again on Thursday.
Netanyahu did not specify what support Israel was giving to the clans, or what their role would be. His announcement came hours after a political opponent criticised him for arming unofficial groups of Palestinians in Gaza.
In a video posted to his X account, Netanyahu said the government made the move on the advice of “security officials”, to save the lives of Israeli soldiers.
Though it has been known in southern Gaza throughout the war, the Abu Shabab group emerged publicly in the past month, posting pictures of its armed members, with helmets, flak jackets and automatic weapons. It declared itself a “nationalist force” protecting aid.
The Abu Shabab family renounced Yasser over his connections with the Israeli military in a recent statement, saying he and anyone who joined his group “are no longer linked” to the family.
The group’s media office said in response to emailed questions from the Associated Press that it operated in Israeli military-controlled areas for a “purely humanitarian” reason.
It described its ties with the Israel military as “humanitarian communication to facilitate the introduction of aid and ensure that it is not intercepted.”
“We are not proxies for anyone,” it said. “We have not received any military or logistical support from any foreign party.”
It said it had “secured the surroundings” of GHF centres in Rafah but was not involved in distribution of food.
It rejected accusations the group had looted aid, calling them “exaggerations” and part of a “smear campaign”. But it also said, “our popular forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab only took the minimum amount of food and water necessary to secure their elements in the field,” without elaborating how, and from whom, they took the aid.
Abu Shabab and about 100 fighters have been active in eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, areas under Israeli military control, according to Nahed Sheheiber, the head of the private transportation union in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups. He said they used to attack aid trucks driving on a military-designated route leading from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, the main entry point for aid.
“Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing,” Sheheiber said, referring to the Israeli military. “The one who has looted aid is now the one who protects aid,” he said sarcastically.
An aid worker in Gaza said humanitarian groups tried last year to negotiate with Abu Shabab and other influential families to end their looting of convoys. Though they agreed, they soon reverted to hijacking trucks, the aid worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk the media.
The aid worker said he saw Abu Shabab’s men operating in Israeli-controlled areas near the military-held Morag Corridor in southern Gaza in late May. They were wearing new uniforms and carried what appeared to be new weapons, he said.
Jonathan Whittall, the head of the United Nations humanitarian office for the occupied Palestinian territory, said that “criminal gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces near Kerem Shalom would systematically attack and loot aid convoys … These gangs have by far been the biggest cause of aid loss in Gaza.”
The war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-linked militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1200 people and taking 251 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Israel responded with an offensive that has decimated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has left the territory on the brink of famine after an 11-week food blockade.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, more than half of them women and children. The ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages. About a third are believed to be alive, though many fear they are in grave danger the longer the war goes on. Israel said it had recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages from Gaza on Thursday in a secret operation.
A Palestinian woman embraces the body of her eight-year-old daughter, Mayar Abu Odeh, who was killed in an Israeli army strike on Gaza on Wednesday.Credit: AP
Israeli strikes overnight and into Thursday killed at least 22 people in Gaza, including three local journalists who were in the courtyard of a hospital, according to health officials in the territory. The military said it targeted a militant in that strike.
Israeli forces also bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight, sending thousands of people fleeing on the eve of an Islamic feast day and prompting accusations by top Lebanese officials that Israel was violating a ceasefire deal. Israel said it was targeting sites that Hezbollah was using to make drones. The strikes were carried out about 90 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings.
It was the fourth time that Dahiyeh has been bombed since the United States brokered a truce in November that ended a year-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court on Thursday in an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal’s cases regarding alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan and over the court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
Flames and smoke following an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh in southern Beirut.Credit: AP
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the judges – Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia – were “actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel”.
The Hague-based court said it deplored the sanctions, calling them an attempt to undermine its independence.
The decision to impose them follows Trump’s executive order in February authorising sanctions on ICC officials who investigate the US and its allies.
The court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November over allegations of war crimes in Gaza. The Israeli government has denied the accusations, and the Biden administration rejected the court’s authority at the time.
Neither the US nor Israel is a party to the court, which was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other atrocities. It has issued 60 arrest warrants, including for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has detained 21 people.
AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
