Many Israeli media outlets take a dismissive view of the local militias fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Such criticism peaked after the December 4 murder of Yasser Abu Shabab, head of the “Popular Forces,” under circumstances that remain largely unclear. Abu Shabab led the first and strongest organizational structure to emerge from the various local clan-based groups. Israeli commentators echoed Hamas propaganda, according to which, following his murder, many members of these organizations took advantage of the temporary amnesty announced by Hamas and surrendered to the security apparatus operating under Hamas’s Ministry of Interior and National Security, thereby contributing to the disintegration of the militias and the strengthening of Hamas’s rule in western Gaza beyond the Yellow Line.
Two developments since Abu Shabab’s murder call this interpretation into question. The first, and more consequential, was the killing of Ahmed Zamzam on December 14 in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. Zamzam, a lieutenant colonel in Hamas’s security apparatus, served as the security coordinator for central Gaza, a relatively senior post within the organization’s internal security system. He was killed in an ambush, apparently carried out by local actors. Some have suggested the operation was conducted by an Israeli special force, but there is little evidence to support that claim. Hamas announced after the attack that it had detained one of those involved. Had the assailant been a captured IDF soldier this would almost certainly have generated significant public attention. The available indications instead point to a planned ambush carried out by local agents or by members of one of the militias.
The killing of Raad Saad, Hamas’s former head of operations and, according to Israeli security sources, the organization’s second-ranking military figure over the past year following the deaths of Sinwar and Deif, can also be seen in this context. Saad, subordinate only to Izz al-Din al-Haddad, was killed, together with three associates, on December 13, 2025, when an Israeli Air Force UAV fired a missile at the vehicle in which they were traveling. Although his killing was a purely Israeli operation and does not directly involve the militias, analysis of the UAV footage released by the IDF indicates that the security posture of the small convoy in which he traveled was designed to protect against a ground-based assassination attempt—presumably by internal opponents of Hamas—rather than against an Israeli airstrike.
This is a reasonable way to set up security with a ceasefire with Israel in effect, and while the threat posed by the militias remains tangible. Saad’s vehicle moved as part of a convoy of at least three cars, with at least two guards positioned on the roof of the pickup truck leading the convoy. These guards were clearly seen jumping from the truck following the missile strike on Saad’s car behind them. Traveling in a convoy facilitates vehicle identification, and moving together with others increases the scale of potential harm.
Saad and his associates had ample reason to fear the IDF in light of its military activity in Gaza, which Hamas media outlets continuously cover and amplify; the reason they violated the basic rules for avoiding Israeli targeting may therefore lie in the internal threat—that is, the threat posed by militia activity. An ambush threat requires travel in a convoy and in a vehicle loaded with bodyguards. Few understood these rules of caution better than Raad Saad, including the tradeoff between measures designed to protect against air attack and security practices intended to counter internal threats. After all, he had been on the IDF’s target list since 2003 and survived multiple attempts before his eventual elimination.
In a struggle in which there is—and can be—no political horizon, given that Hamas will clearly remain in the near and even medium term the strongest Palestinian actor in Gaza and one fully committed to the goal of eliminating the “Zionist entity,” it is of great importance to force the organization onto the defensive. The more a violent actor is preoccupied with defense, the fewer resources it has to attack and endanger its enemy—Israeli soldiers. Militias can serve as an effective means of achieving this important tactical objective.
Israel should avoid repeating the mistake made by many in the political establishment and the media, who in the late 1970s and 1980s denounced the use of village leagues against PLO forces in Judea and Samaria as “Quislings,” thereby undermining their standing and effectiveness. Militias are not meant to serve as harbingers of peace, but rather as an additional means of weakening Hamas, just as the war itself weakened the organization. Hamas’s vulnerability can be seen in the fact that the killing of a senior figure such as Saad elicited no response from the organization, particularly in the realm of rocket fire. Israel has an interest in Hamas focusing on defending itself against clan-based militias at the expense of attacks on IDF soldiers, and it appears that the killing of Zamzam and the security surrounding Saad’s movements indicate that the militias are contributing to the realization of this objective.
JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.
