Members of the Daesh-linked Abu Shabab terrorist group can be seen in this image posted on the group’s Facebook page. (Photo via social media)
The Israeli military has carried out an airstrike against a group of Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip as the resistance combatants were preparing to launch an operation against Daesh-tied militants in the besieged territory, further exposing the nexus between the Tel Aviv regime and the Takfiri terrorists.
According to Hebrew-language i24NEWS channel, Hamas members engaged in an exchange of gunfire with members of the so-called Abu Shabab group at a Gaza neighborhood late on Monday.
The clashes intensified overnight, with both sides suffering a number of casualties.
It was when the Israeli army deployed an unnamed aerial vehicle to the scene, which fired a missile. Four fighters from the Hamas resistance movement were killed as a result.
The aerial attack marks the first of its kind by the Israeli military, whose sole purpose was to aid Daesh-linked Abu Shabab members.
Earlier this month, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that the regime has been arming and supporting a gang associated with Daesh terrorists in the Gaza Strip to "counter the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas."
The confession came after Avigdor Lieberman, a Knesset member and the regime’s former minister for military affairs, said Israel had transferred weapons to criminal gangs.
“What did Lieberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?” Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media.
“It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers.”
The group Lieberman was addressing in his remarks was a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
The head of the Daesh-affiliated group has spent time in prison in Gaza, and his tribe chiefs have recently denounced him as an Israeli “collaborator and a gangster.”
Evidence of the group’s role in Israel’s campaign of genocide led elders and leaders of the prominent Abu Shabab family to announce their disavowal of the group.
Yasser Abu Shabab also has a known history of drug smuggling and has established a fortified base in an Israeli-controlled zone in Rafah under the regime's guidance.
He comes from the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, which spans from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to southern Gaza and the Negev Desert, and has been identified in an internal UN memo as “the main influential figure behind the widespread and organized looting” of aid convoys to Gaza.
Last year, the New Arab, a leading English-language news website, reported that Abu Shabab, among others, was working alongside hundreds of thieves under the protection of Israeli forces near the Karem Abu Salem crossing, the primary entry point for aid convoys.
Last week, Palestinian resistance fighters revealed the group's involvement in Israeli covert operations by releasing videos showing the Yasser Abu Shabab forces working alongside Israeli undercover units targeting Palestinians in Rafah.
Senior Israeli commanders have warned that the regime’s armed forces lack the manpower and resources to fulfill the goals in the besieged Gaza Strip. They say Hamas remains in control of the Gaza Strip even nearly two years into the campaign of genocide.
Israeli intelligence says virtually 20,000 Hamas fighters, including several commanders, remain active across Gaza.
