The Israeli government and its army long believed they knew everything about Gaza, thanks to constant drone surveillance and the sometimes systematic interception of local communications. They were convinced that these tools would compensate for their lack of any local contacts among the Gaza population – a result of their scorched-earth policy during the withdrawal of the army and settlers in 2005.
This lack of Palestinian collaborators has only deepened over the 16 years of blockade imposed by Israel from 2007 onward, after Hamas took control of the Palestinian enclave.
Israel's technological dominance did not spare it the trauma of the October 7, 2023, bloodbath. But even such a shock failed to convince the Israeli military to change its approach in Gaza, where the systematic use of artificial intelligence, rather than human intelligence, has proven devastating for the civilian population.
Israel gambles on looters
The surest way to remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip would have been to support a credible Palestinian alternative – an option categorically rejected by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister fears that a return of the Palestinian Authority from Ramallah to Gaza would revive the two-state solution, even as he fights against any prospect of a meaningful Palestinian entity − including a demilitarized one.
The Israeli military has therefore turned to certain Gaza clans, hoping that these traditional structures could counterbalance Hamas – ignoring the fact that such networks of solidarity have been deeply weakened by the constant displacement imposed on the population, leaving them unable to unite against the Islamist movement across the enclave.
Israeli military authorities then settled on a faction of organized crime able to operate near their positions, hoping to transform them into a local auxiliary militia. The leader of what must be called a gang is Yasser Abu Shabab, a convicted criminal disowned by his Rafah family and driven by a thirst for revenge against Hamas, which had imprisoned him for drug trafficking.
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