Executions, intimidation, chaos: Hamas reasserts its power in Gaza

Onlookers filmed with their phones, whistling and jeering as the Hamas militants took aim and unleashed a hail of bullets at the men branded collaborators and outlaws.

The killings sent a message to Hamas’s rivals in Gaza and to its foes abroad: after two years of war, it is still a force to be reckoned with.

As a ceasefire agreement came into effect last week, Israel said it had defeated Hamas “in every place” it had fought it. But the group has quickly reasserted control in areas vacated by Israeli forces; its police redeployed across the enclave while security forces hunt down rival groups. Deadly clashes erupted over the weekend after Hamas security forces went after the powerful Doghmush clan. Other groups were also threatened, accused of collaborating with Israel and exploiting disorder to steal aid.

“It’s chaos – all of this is the outcome of two years of Israeli genocide,” said father-of-two Hadi Abed Rabbo, who has been displaced more than a dozen times within the north of Gaza. “This is what the occupation has planted among us.”

The violence demonstrates the challenges of stabilising Gaza in the wake of a war that has not only devastated the enclave, but also shredded its social fabric. The 20-point peace plan proposed by US president Donald Trump commits Hamas to relinquish power, without any clear agreement over how and when. “They’re going to disarm, because they said they were going to disarm,” Trump said. “And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them.”

For now, Hamas is the only force capable of imposing any semblance of order, even after being battered by Israel. Trump appeared to recognise that reality, telling reporters that Washington had given Hamas a green light to act as a police force in Gaza. “You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be safe,” Trump said on his way to the Middle East on Air Force One.

As the ceasefire came into effect, the Hamas-run interior ministry said its police were deploying to areas vacated by Israeli forces. The police urged civilians returning home to be careful of suspicious objects and unexploded ordnance, and to report anything to the authorities.

“You can see them everywhere, in the roads and markets,” said Nizar Bakron, who lost his father, his two children, his sister, her husband and their children in an Israeli airstrike, and is unable to return home to northern Gaza because of fuel shortages. “Their [Hamas’s] security forces and police spread across the streets immediately after the ceasefire was announced.”

Emerging from the shadows, Hamas began cracking down on clans that have asserted themselves while the group was forced underground. Israel has actively supported some groups as an alternative to Hamas, which crushed its opponents after seizing power in 2007. Beyond weakening Hamas, the strategy seeks to divide and conquer Palestinians, preventing the emergence of any credible alternative, experts say.

“What’s happening right now is really a direct consequence of an Israeli policy that it has been pursuing throughout much of the war, but particularly since it broke the ceasefire in March: to render Gaza ungovernable,” said Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group. “There is a vying of authority and space and control that threatens to fall into real anarchy.”

More than two dozen people, including a journalist, were killed in the confrontation between Hamas and the Doghmush clan. One of Gaza’s most powerful families, the clan has a long and tense relationship with Hamas and is involved in smuggling and other criminal enterprises.

Militias that have received backing from Israel are now sheltering in the 53% of the strip still under its control. The Popular Forces militia run by Yasser Abu Shabab has been operating in the Rafah area of southern Gaza for several months, coordinating closely with Israeli forces along aid distribution routes. A humanitarian worker said some aid organisations had contracted members of Abu Shabab’s militia to protect their shipments from looting by his men.

In a message to The Observer this week, Abu Shabab said his militia had been established to protect civilians from the “terrorist Hamas rule”. “We continue our work to protect our people,” he wrote.

Another group led by a member of the al-Majida clan, Hussam al-Astal, has been active in the area of Khan Younis. “Hamas may be in control today, but not forever,” Astal wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “People are tired of slogans and blood and lies in the name of resistance.”

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged earlier this year that Israel was supporting members of clans that oppose Hamas. “What’s wrong with that? It’s a good thing. It saves the lives of [Israeli] soldiers,” he said, without naming the groups.

But the strategy has largely failed. Most of the major clans in Gaza have refused to work with Israel. And despite growing anger towards Hamas, most Gazans view those suspected of receiving Israeli support with contempt.

“These militias are creations of the Israeli occupation – they’ve split from the Palestinian ranks in Gaza,” said Abed Rabbo. “Israel designed them to destabilise internal security. Their members are drug and weapons dealers with morally corrupt and criminal pasts.”

Following the clashes with the Doghmush clan, the interior ministry offered an amnesty to any members who had “no blood on their hands”. It said security forces were taking steps to restore security and stability after “criminal gangs” exploited the chaos of war to loot humanitarian aid and steal property. From 13 October it gave clan members a week to turn themselves in, warning that “decisive measures” would be taken against those who refused.

Asked about the summary killings in Gaza, Trump said he wasn’t fazed. “That’s OK. It’s a couple of very bad gangs.”

Israel, however, has seized on the bloodshed to push for Hamas to disarm. “Beyond the threat Hamas posed to Israelis, Hamas is killing Palestinians,” the foreign ministry said on X. “Hamas must go.”

Under the proposed peace plan, independent monitors will oversee a process of demilitarisation in Gaza. Hamas members who commit to live peacefully and give up their weapons will be granted amnesty. Those who wish to leave Gaza will be offered safe passage to designated countries. Hamas and other factions agree to hold no role in the enclave’s governance, “directly, indirectly, or in any form”.

In public, Hamas says it won’t disarm until a Palestinian state is established. Privately, however, the group’s attitude is more nuanced, said Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Hamas has signalled willingness to give up some weapons such as missiles and rockets, he said, and is open to destruction of tunnels designed to conduct attacks against Israeli troops.

But full demilitarisation as sought by Israel is currently unlikely. “That’s just not realistic,” said Lovatt. “Certainly not before a final Israeli-Palestinian deal.”

Photographs by Al-Aqsa TV/AFP, Jehad Alshrafi/AP, Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu via Getty