Palestinian Journalist, Osama Nazzal has come forward with chilling revelations about Israel’s latest covert tactic in its long-standing campaign against Palestinians: the arming and protection of criminal militias within Gaza. Speaking from Ramallah, Nazzal exposes how these gangs, are being enabled by Israeli forces to deepen internal chaos, weaken resistance, and exhaust the social fabric of Palestinian society.
Israel’s involvement with these groups is not accidental. It is part of a deliberate and systematic policy designed to fracture Palestinian unity. Osama points to groups like Abu Shabbab’s militia, which openly loot aid convoys, intimidate civilians, and operate with protection from the Israeli military. “Israel is using new methods by recruiting its collaborators and its spies in order to disintegrate the social fabric of the Palestinian society,” Nazzal says.
This approach mirrors past strategies used in colonial contexts. Nazzal draws a powerful comparison to apartheid South Africa, where black-on-black violence was incited to weaken resistance movements. Israel, he explains, has adopted a similar playbook by enabling violence between Palestinians themselves, masking the hand that fuels it.
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“These groups serve the interests of the colonial power,” Nazzal emphasizes, “but in the end they fail.” He insists that these armed factions cannot be called Palestinian groups.
“Any group that is working within the frame of the Israeli occupation is part of the Israeli occupation and it can’t be called a Palestinian group,” he says. “The Palestinian people consider any person, any individual, any group that does not act according to Palestinian national norms and principles no longer Palestinians.”
Nazzal passionately rejects the popular narrative that Israel’s war is solely against Hamas. “Israel is not fighting Hamas or any other certain party in Palestine. Israel is fighting every Palestinian citizen, every Palestinian person because this is the Israeli agenda,” he says.
He provides a clear example from the West Bank city of Dabis, where Israeli forces have been conducting military raids despite there being no Hamas presence. “So what is the justification of the Israeli raid into Nablus now and into Jenin early this morning detaining people, destroying houses, taking over land? Hamas is not here.”
While Israel claims it is targeting militants, the destruction tells another story. “Israel is killing hundreds every day of Palestinian children and women and elderly. Israel is destroying everything. Gaza is a heap of dust because of the Israeli bombs and the Israeli missiles,” Nazzal says. His voice does not waver as he describes a devastated homeland and a people under siege.
Nazzal warns that the international community is being fed a distraction. “When Israel is talking about Hamas, it is just in order to have a cover-up for its plan and its program that is based on ethnic cleansing and genocide,” he says. “Israel has a clear policy: ethnic cleansing, genocide, and colonizing every inch of the Palestinian land, killing the people of Palestine and expelling them from their homeland. That is the policy.”
Even in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority like Ramallah, where Nazzal speaks from, Israeli settlers launch attacks on Palestinian villages, torch homes, and vandalize property. “We have 950 Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank where there is no Hamas. So why is Israel doing that though there is no Hamas here? Because Israel does not differentiate between a Palestinian and another as it has one plan and one policy: all the land for the Jewish colonist and no Palestinian is allowed to live here.”
As the world watches, Nazzal urges it not to be distracted by narratives designed to confuse and divide. What is unfolding, he insists, is not a conflict between two equal sides but a genocidal campaign. “The Palestinian people, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or anywhere the Palestinians exist, are subjected to a heinous genocidal war by the Zionist colonial power of Israel,” he says. “But it failed to end the existence of the Palestinian people who refused to leave their homeland despite all the orals and all the catastrophes they are going through.”
The message is clear. The violence is not random. The strategy is not new. And the Palestinian people, despite everything, remain unbroken.
For more on this, watch the video below:
Image: Members of the Abu Shabab gang in Gaza, as seen in a recent video posted on Facebook (via Middle East Eye)
