Israel has previously acknowledged supporting militias opposing Hamas in Gaza.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
An Israeli-backed anti-Hamas militia operating in Israel Defense Forces-controlled areas of southern Gaza said it has begun dismantling Hamas’s tunnel network, a development that further highlights Israel’s support for armed Palestinian groups fighting the terror organization, Times of Israel reports.
Ghassan al-Duhaini, leader of the Popular Forces militia, said the group is targeting Hamas’s underground infrastructure as part of a broader campaign against the organization.
“We have gradually begun dismantling the tunnels, as they are the most important weapons. Then the weapons production facilities, then the rockets, and finally the light weapons,” Duhaini said in a Facebook post.
Duhaini said his group would act forcefully to prevent arms trafficking in the Rafah area. “In the future, not a single illegal weapon will enter Rafah, and smuggling operations will be dealt with in full force,” he wrote. Alongside the post, he shared an image showing militia members wearing oxygen masks near a tunnel entrance.
Prominent military analyst Joe Truzman commented on X that the organization appeared to be expanding.
The MiddleEast_24 account noted that eight of nine fighters pictured alongside Duhaini appeared to have revealed their identities and said the group was operating in open defiance of Hamas in Gaza.
The Popular Forces was founded by Yasser Abu Shabab, an anti-Hamas Bedouin militia leader who was killed in December in what the group described as a family feud.
Duhaini, his deputy, subsequently assumed leadership and vowed to continue the fight against Hamas.
Israel has previously acknowledged supporting militias opposing Hamas in Gaza, including providing weapons, intelligence, air support, food and cigarettes, and evacuating wounded fighters into Israel for medical treatment.
Last month, the militia captured a senior Hamas commander in the Rafah area after he emerged from a tunnel and later transferred him to the IDF.
The Israeli military said the commander was a “key commander” in Hamas’s East Rafah Battalion and was among eight operatives targeted in overnight airstrikes.
On Monday, Hamas’s armed wing issued a warning against the Popular Forces and other Israeli-backed militias. “A dark fate is coming soon,” said Abu Obeida, spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades. “Their ending will be death and annihilation, and the enemy will not protect them from the justice of our people.”