Over the past week, numerous videos surfaced of Israel-backed collaborators giving out food parcels to families of their affiliates in the Gaza Strip. Other footage also showed them inaugurating schools and other facilities in areas under their control. The propaganda attempts, however, failed to polish their stained image.
Under the cover of quadcopters hovering above, these groups, led by Rami Helles, terrorized residents of Shujaiya and Tuffah neighbourhoods, giving out orders to evacuate the area while firing live ammunition. In some instances, they kidnapped young men from their homes. All under the pretext that the IOF was preparing to push the yellow line westward.
We knew we were facing people more despicable than the occupation soldiers themselves. Even during previous evacuations, we were able to take out furniture, clothes, and food supplies.
Al-Akhbar spoke to Rami Abu Hamed, a resident who had to flee his home without taking any of his belongings or identification papers. He said the gangs opened fire at anyone remaining in the area. “We knew we were facing people more despicable than the occupation soldiers themselves. Even during previous evacuations, we were able to take out furniture, clothes, and food supplies. This time, we left with only the clothes on our backs,” he added. “The scoundrels gave us no chance at all.”
In parallel, similar attacks took place in the eastern areas of Khan Younis, where groups led by spies Yasser al-Deheini and Shawqi Abu Nasira are active. In addition to their usual duties of abductions and sweeps along the yellow line, they attempted to form covert cells that could infiltrate Gaza’s very social fabric and carry out more complex security missions.
Al-Akhbar has learned that security services raided Abu Nasira’s home last week and seized 700,000 shekels (around US $200,000), believed to have been allocated for financing these groups. The roles assigned to collaborators are no longer limited to tracking resistance fighters or gathering intelligence on deployment and lookout points, but now include the erosion of the social contract by spreading organized crime, promoting drugs, planting surveillance devices, and disseminating false information. Still, the killing of Yasser Abu Shabab and the subsequent footage showing collaborators targeting resistance fighters have led to a clear decline in the number of recruits joining collaborator groups, especially after dozens returned to settle their status with the security services.
These collaborators, previously marketed as a potential alternative to Hamas’ rule in the Strip, are now exposed and socially ostracized, particularly following the statements issued by families and clans disavowing anyone proven to be involved with spy networks.