Hamas Now Has Another Worry: The Clans of Gaza

The IDF continues to batter Hamas, having reduced its store of major weaponry, including rockets and missiles, by 80-90%. It has killed at least 22,000 of its fighters; on October 7 Hamas had about 30,000 fighters, and to replace such huge losses the terror group has been recruiting inexperienced teenagers with no training and no battlefield experience. The IDF has managed to kill almost every one of its senior commanders. Now that Hamas has been so weakened, as the IDF continues to pound it with airstrikes, the strongest clans in Hamas have re-emerged to challenge the terror group’s authority, hoping in their zones of influence to replace Hamas as the conduit for outside aid, and to be able to seize for itself much of that humanitarian aid, just as Hamas has done until now, for sale, at exorbitant prices, to ordinary Gazans.

More on the clans of Gaza — think of them as akin to the Five Families of the Mafia — can be found here: “Gaza in turmoil: Clans emerge as rivals to Hamas’s rule,” by Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post, June 1, 2025:

Armed clans are reasserting themselves in the Gaza Strip, challenging Hamas’s authority, particularly in areas where the IDF is conducting operations and Hamas has lost control, senior IDF officials told Walla.

Sources told Saudi-owned site Al Hadath on Sunday that Hamas has lost security control over the Gaza Strip, adding that thieves and gangs seize aid, loot homes, and terrorize residents….

When it was riding high in Gaza, Hamas did more than torture and murder anyone who dared to criticize the terror group. It raised money to pay its fighters by stealing humanitarian aid which it would then sell, at stiff prices, to the people who were supposed to receive it for free. It was also a police force, stopping street robberies and house (or often, tent) burglaries. Now that Hamas has lost control, because so many of its weapons have been seized, and so many of its fighters killed, by the IDF, the family clans have stepped in to enforce their own order, which means that members of the most powerful clan in each area can do what they like, steal whatever they want — especially looting humanitarian aid from warehouses, and also smuggling in from Egypt, just as Hamas did even before October 7 — goods as various as drugs, cigarettes, electronic goods, and weapons. At the same time, the clans shoot at Hamas operatives trying to hold onto the aid the clans are determined to take from them.

Hamas’s hold weakened further as the IDF carried out ground operations and divided Gaza. Following the ceasefire announcement, Hamas forces deployed convoys to both the north and south, aiming to reassert control. These forces responded harshly to defiant clans, employing arrests, torture, knee shootings, and even killings to quell opposition.

During the temporary ceasefire, IDF pressure was lifted from Hamas, and the terror group tried to reassert its authority in places where the clans had been taking control. The clans fought back, and Hamas did not spare their members, with arrests, torture, and murder of recalcitrant clan members. That treatment solidified the hatred the extended-family clans feel for Hamas.

The Abu Shabab clan, led by Yasser Abu Shabab of the Tarabin family, has emerged as a leading force. After being expelled from Rafah, the clan has operated aggressively in the north and south. Palestinian reports indicate that the group both secures humanitarian aid convoys and loots them. Hamas has accused the clan of collaborating with Israel….

Hamas accuses any clan that challenges its authority as “collaborating with Israel.” No one pays attention, even when, in one or two cases, it might be true. In a certain sense, any clan fighting Hamas is willy-nilly “collaborating” with the IDF.

Former security officials caution that as long as these clans remain armed, they will pose a threat to Hamas’s authority. “There is no vacuum in Gaza,” said one official. “If Hamas gunmen are not present, clan members will try to impose their own order. Should a ceasefire hold, Hamas will have to confront this entrenched problem. If not, the clans will only grow stronger. They are not waiting for anyone.”

The seven powerful clans, the largest of them made up of many hundreds of fighters belonging to a single extended family, have tasted real authority as Hamas has weakened, and have no intention of giving up the power, and wealth, they have now acquired. Hamas is holding on, just, as the IDF continues its assault, on the terror group, but now, to make matters even more dire, Hamas has lost the ability to scare the clans into submission. In Gaza, as Hamas continues to lose still more control, the clans will split up Gaza into a half-dozen territories, just as Mafia families do, with each controlled locally by a different family clan, but with overall control in the Strip still remaining with the IDF. For Hamas, there is no going back to the status quo ante.