Will arming Gazan militias against Hamas harm Israel in the long run?

Peloni:  A decisive assault on Gaza followed by fascilitated tranfer of Gazans to Jordan would provide the version of what might be deemed as victory in Gaza.  Arming gangs suggests a long term strategy in Gaza which will obstruct both aspects of victory

Relying on a tribal militia or clan in Gaza may work in the short term. However, in the long term it is unlikely to achieve success.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN | JUNE 7, 2025

Reports have confirmed that Israel has been arming and apparently supporting or working with armed militias in Gaza. Some reports refer to this group as a “gang.” Others describe the leader of the group, Yasser Abu Shabab, as a member of a large clan in southern Gaza.

There may be more clans being activated or encouraged than just the one linked to Abu Shabab, which is not his real name but rather a nomme de guerre, meaning the full details about this group continue to be shrouded in some mystery.It is therefore hard to know if these groups will become an effective anti-Hamas movement. If they are gangs that are better known for looting and other past crimes than for achieving much now, then they will likely not be embraced by the average person.

Will the militias be accepted by Palestinian society?

This means that any attempt by the armed militias, gangs, or clans will face hurdles in terms of penetrating Gazan society. This is because groups that have roots in one area may not be popular in others, or they may even alienate people.

Back in the 1980s, Gazan families and clans were often involved in violence against one another. This kind of family violence is also common in Arab villages in Israel, where there has been an unprecedented level of gun violence in recent years. This kind of violence means people are often divided and hard to unify, either militarily or politically.

What does history tell us about the challenge that militaries or countries have in recruiting or arming tribes, mercenaries, militias, or other types of paramilitary groups?

It was not uncommon in antiquity for tribes to play a role as auxiliaries alongside normal military formations.  It was also common that when countries were at war, they would often bring along a cavalcade of smaller allies. For instance, when Hannibal was fighting Rome at the beginning of the 3rd century BCE, he had to recruit people from Italy because the number of Carthaginians in his army began to decline over time.

By the 15th and 16th centuries, mercenaries played a major role in fighting among the Italian city-states. This was the era of Machiavelli, who wrote that mercenaries were often “disunited, ambitious, [and] undisciplined.”

However, they continued to be used by European states. The British employed Hessian mercenaries and others during the American Revolutionary War. These groups generally did not prove effective. In addition, the British and other colonial powers often relied on alliances with tribes to help during wartime or to keep the frontier peaceful.

For instance, at the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, the British army fighting the Zulus in Southern Africa included a number of local native troops. The native troops of the Natal Native Contingent, for instance, included tribes that had fought the Zulus. Henan Cortes, during his conquest of the Aztec empire, allied with groups that the Aztecs had suppressed in the past.

In modern times, many countries have sought to work with tribes and militias. For instance, Lawrence of Arabia worked with tribes that were in revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1916-18). During the Vietnam war, the US often worked with Montagnard fighters who opposed the Communists. America also worked with the Hmong people in Laos.

Later, during the US occupation in Iraq, the US relied on a group called the Sons of Iraq or Sahweh, which were Sunni tribal militias concentrated in Anbar province. Rwanda has long backed groups in eastern Congo who are made up of members of the Tutsi minority.

What this history tells us is that there is a long tradition of working with tribal militias, clans, gangs, and mercenaries. However, these groups do not have a lasting ability to achieve results. Usually, they are used as part of a policy and then abandoned when a war is over.

In other cases, they simply fade away. The Sunni “awakening” groups in Iraq, for instance, were starved of resources after the US left the country in 2011. Some of the tribes that supported America continued to play a role. During the ISIS invasion of Iraq, a number of tribes near Haditha helped hold off the ISIS attack. These included the Jughayfa and Albu Nimr tribes.

ISIS persecuted tribal groups that resisted. Key Sunni tribes such as the Shammar opposed ISIS and similar extremists. However, most of these tribes are not able to operate on a national level; they can only help secure certain areas.

The use of tribes and militias usually enables states to carve out areas of influence in other states in which they are intervening. When there is a chaotic or weak state on the border, countries will often seek to arm local groups to help protect their borders.

This can backfire because the groups may end up going on rampages and massacring people, or they may escalate a war in a neighboring country. The Vietnam War, for instance, destabilized Cambodia and Laos, which led to great suffering over the years. Minority groups who were exploited as allies were often betrayed.

In other situations, states will try to co-opt or even work with drug cartels, which is how Mexico’s former Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) appeared to have run the country in the 1980s and ‘90s. When this broke down, the country fell into a brutal cycle of violence as the cartels had become more powerful than some state governments.

While relying on a tribal militia or clan in Gaza may work in the short term, it is unlikely to achieve long-term success. The theory that Israeli soldiers’ lives will be saved via this alliance is not necessarily proven by history.

Usually, when states think they can provide guns to tribes or militias as a short-term fix, they find out later that they are drawn into more complex wars. For instance, the spillover from the Rwandan genocide has led to fighting in eastern Congo for thirty years.

Has the use of proxies, tribes, and militias there helped Rwanda, Congo, or anyone else in the long term? Probably not. The same can be said for Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and many other states teetering on failure and civil war. A long civil war in Gaza will likely harm Israel in the long term.