Israel is providing weapons to an armed militia opposing Hamas, a defense source confirmed on Thursday.

Following reports in recent weeks that Israel was working with a gang led by Yasser Abu Shabab based in Rafah in southern Gaza, Avigdor Liberman, the former defense minister and current opposition lawmaker, said on Kan radio that “Israel provided assault rifles and light arms to crime families in Gaza, on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s orders … These are the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza.”

Liberman said Israel’s security cabinet was not involved in or informed of the decision to give the Al Shabab clan guns, but the Shin Bet was aware of it. 

“No one can ensure that these weapons will not be turned against Israel,” he added. “We have no way of supervising or following [where they go].” 

Netanyahu’s office did not deny the allegation and responded that “Israel is acting to defeat Hamas in various ways upon the recommendation of the heads of the security establishment.”

Israel is providing the Al Shabab gang with Kalashnikov rifles, some of which were confiscated from Hamas during fighting in the past 20 months. 

Liberman compared giving the Al Shabab militia guns to Netanyahu allowing Qatar to send aid to Gaza, based on an idea that keeping Palestinians divided is better for Israel. 

“The prime minister of Oct. 7 hasn’t learned anything and is still continuing with the same idea that led us to the greatest massacre in the history of the state,” Liberman posted on X. “For years, Netanyahu nurtured Hamas and refused to listen to me when I said that he is severely damaging Israel’s national security.”

“Now he is making the exact same mistake and sending weapons to clans identified with ISIS in Gaza,” Liberman stated.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declined to comment. Ben-Gvir began his career in political activism opposing the Oslo Accords; one of the Israeli right’s leading slogans against the accords was “don’t give [the Palestinians] guns.”

Hamas posted videos online of its members targeting the militia in Rafah, a city which the IDF controls. Hamas called Abu Shabab “the Israeli Robin Hood” in a social media post on Thursday, and other members of his clan distanced themselves from him. 

Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University, noted on X that Palestinian media have reported on Israeli cooperation with clan-based militias in recent weeks to secure humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Abu Shabab militia has a few hundred members who came together since the IDF entered Rafah in mid-2024.

Milshtein told JI that he does not know of any ties between ISIS and Yasser Abu Shabab, whose gang he called “psychopaths.”

Yasser Abu Shabab spent years in Hamas prisons, mostly for smuggling, theft and selling drugs, and was freed after Oct. 7, 2023, Milshtein said.