Gaza militias key to Israel's security plans

But some factions' previous ties to Islamic State are raising alarm bells

- BY NABIH BULOS

PALESTINIANS survey a camp for the displaced in Gaza City. One militia called itself "a peace partner."

(JEHAD ALSHRAFI Associated Press)

When Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire this year, it brought into question the fate of militias Israel cultivated during the devastating two-year war as an alternative ruling force in Gaza.

Many expected that Hamas — still the dominant force in the Strip — would hunt them down.

Instead, Israel has shifted the militias to the half of Gaza from which it has yet to withdraw, east of the so-called Yellow Line, the military boundary that divides Gaza in two. In the Israeli-controlled half, five factions, still supported by Israel with arms and aid, have established what are essentially tiny fiefdoms, even as they continue to wage a harassment campaign across the Yellow Line to stop Hamas from reasserting its rule.

For its part, Israel wants to use the factions as local proxies to secure parts of the enclave under its control, ensure they're free of any hostile groups, then set up humanitarian distribution points to keep residents there. "The objective," according to a June report on Israeli-supported militias in Gaza from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, "is to sever Hamas' access to both the local population and to the incoming humanitarian aid.

But the militias, which first arose as criminal gangs exploiting the security vacuum during the war and include members with questionable links to Islamic State, have larger plans: They tout themselves as an integral part of any post-conflict plan.