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. 

A group of 22 left-wing House Democrats introduced legislation pushing for a series of sweeping and unprecedented new restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel, requiring specific authorizations from Congress for each transfer of numerous key weapons and guarantees from Israel about their use.

The legislation would prohibit the administration from transferring or selling a series of arms to Israel including several types of bombs, bomb guidance kits and tank and artillery ammunition without the passage of a distinct law from Congress authorizing the individual transfer.

The bill would require Congress, in those authorizations, to identify “the specific purpose or purposes for which such articles or services may be used for.” And Israel would have to provide “written assurances satisfactory to the President” that the weapons would be used in accordance with those specified purposes, as well as in line with existing U.S. arms sales law — which is already binding on Israel — and international law.

The proposal, which stands no chance of passing in the current Congress, goes beyond the conditions that have previously been proposed for U.S. arms sales to Israel or in place for any other recipients of U.S. aid. It contains no emergency waiver provision for the administration, should Israel face an attack.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power and a former Senate staffer, told Jewish Insider that the bill “would be an extraordinary measure targeting Israel alone in a unique manner with the clear purpose of depriving Israel of some of the munitions it needs most” and is “among some of the most concerning anti-Israel legislation we’ve seen in recent years.” 

He said that, while Congress has placed conditions on arms transfers to other nations in the past, the requirement of specific congressional approval for each transfer is “particularly aggressive.” He described the bill as “part of a campaign on the far left in this country focused on depriving the world’s only majority Jewish state of the means of self defense.”

“If it were to become law, it essentially is an arms embargo against Israel for these munitions,” Bowman said, making it “incredibly time consuming” to provide those weapons and slow the transfers down by months, and giving anti-Israel members opportunities to further derail the process through procedural means.

The bill is led by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and co-sponsored by Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Becca Balint (D-VT), Andre Carson (D-IN), Greg Casar (D-TX), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lateefah Simon (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).

A Ramirez spokesperson told JI that Ramirez introduced the legislation prior to the news of the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington last week. “Out of an abundance of respect and care for the communities and loved ones impacted by the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, Ramirez and the cosponsoring legislators decided to hold any plan to discuss it publicly, honoring the intention of the legislation to uphold our shared humanity and interconnectedness. We will be sharing more information on the legislation once members return to DC,” the spokesperson said.

Bowman noted that the group in support of this bill is nowhere near a majority in either chamber, but “could be increasingly problematic” as their numbers grow and members gain leadership roles in key committees.

He said the weapons in question are critical for Israel’s operations against Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as for preventing imminent launches of rockets toward Israeli cities. And, he noted, some of the weapons included, like the bomb guidance kits, are designed to improve targeting and decrease civilian casualties, making the effort counterproductive.