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Four Clans, Armed Groups Challenging Hamas in Gaza 

Heavy machinery removes debris from a street, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, October 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Heavy machinery removes debris from a street, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, October 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Four Clans, Armed Groups Challenging Hamas in Gaza 

Heavy machinery removes debris from a street, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, October 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Heavy machinery removes debris from a street, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, October 14, 2025. (Reuters)

During the Gaza war, Hamas faced not only military setbacks but also growing internal challenges to its rule in the enclave from old rivals, many of them belonging to powerful local clans, according to Reuters.

Since the start of the ceasefire last Friday, Hamas has sought to reassert control, killing dozens of opponents in a sweeping crackdown after what appeared to be a US green light for the group to temporarily take charge of security in the devastated territory.

Below are some of the main clans and factions whose members have clashed with Hamas forces over the past two years:

Abu Shabab Clan

Yasser Abu Shabab, based in Rafah, is one of the most prominent clan leaders opposing Hamas. He operates in a part of southern Gaza still occupied by Israeli forces.

According to a source close to him, Abu Shabab’s group has recruited hundreds of fighters by offering attractive salaries. Hamas accuses him of collaborating with Israel, a charge he denies.

The Abu Shabab clan is a Bedouin tribe concentrated in eastern Rafah. It is unclear whether the entire clan supports Abu Shabab’s actions. The group’s armed force is estimated at about 400 men.

Doghmush Clan

The Doghmush are among the largest and most powerful clans in Gaza, long known for being heavily armed. Clan leaders see weapons as a traditional necessity to defend their land.

Members of the Doghmush clan have been affiliated with various Palestinian armed factions, including Fatah and Hamas.

Mumtaz Doghmush, a senior clan leader, once headed the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza City. He later formed “Jaysh al-Islam” (Army of Islam), which pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Jaysh al-Islam, along with other factions, took part in the 2006 cross-border raid with Hamas that led to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was later freed in a prisoner exchange.

Mumtaz Doghmush’s whereabouts have been unknown since before the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023. Hamas has previously clashed with the clan over its refusal to disarm and over the kidnapping of a British journalist by its militants.

Hamas gunmen fought Doghmush clan members on Sunday and Monday, killing several people on both sides, according to security sources. There is no indication that Mumtaz Doghmush was involved in the latest fighting, as he has not been seen or heard from in years.

Al-Majayda Clan

This large and influential clan is based in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and its members have clashed with Hamas fighters in recent months.

Earlier this month, Hamas raided the clan’s area to arrest men it said were wanted for killing members of the movement. The raid sparked an exchange of gunfire that left casualties on both sides, according to Hamas and clan members.

Sources close to the clan denied Hamas accusations that they were linked to Abu Shabab. They accused Hamas of using the raid as a pretext for targeted killings, citing a document they said was found on the bodies of Hamas fighters killed in the assault.

Nevertheless, the clan’s leader issued a statement on social media on Monday voicing support for Hamas’s security campaign to uphold law and order in Gaza, urging clan members to cooperate. The clan includes members affiliated with both Fatah and Hamas.

Rami Hellis

The Hellis family is a large clan based in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood.

A few months ago, Rami Hellis, a senior clan member, and Ahmed Jundeya, a leading figure from another major Shejaiya clan, formed a group that operates in defiance of Hamas in parts of the neighborhood still controlled by Israeli forces.

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NATO's Ability to Deter Russia Has Taken a Hit with Trans-Atlantic Infighting

A photo shows a residential area near the airport at the city of Nuuk, western Greenland, with a slightly snow covered mountain in the background, on January 28, 2026. (AFP)
A photo shows a residential area near the airport at the city of Nuuk, western Greenland, with a slightly snow covered mountain in the background, on January 28, 2026. (AFP)
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NATO's Ability to Deter Russia Has Taken a Hit with Trans-Atlantic Infighting

A photo shows a residential area near the airport at the city of Nuuk, western Greenland, with a slightly snow covered mountain in the background, on January 28, 2026. (AFP)
A photo shows a residential area near the airport at the city of Nuuk, western Greenland, with a slightly snow covered mountain in the background, on January 28, 2026. (AFP)

European allies and Canada are pouring billions of dollars into helping Ukraine, and they have pledged to massively boost their budgets to defend their territories.

But despite those efforts, NATO’s credibility as a unified force under US leadership has taken a huge hit over the past year as trust within the 32-nation military organization dissolved.

The rift has been most glaring over U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. More recently, Trump's disparaging remarks about his NATO allies' troops in Afghanistan drew another outcry.

While the heat on Greenland has subsided for now, the infighting has seriously undercut the ability of the world’s biggest security alliance to deter adversaries, analysts say.

“The episode matters because it crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed,” Sophia Besch from the Carnegie Europe think tank said in a report on the Greenland crisis. “Even without force or sanctions, that breach weakens the alliance in a lasting way.”

The tensions haven’t gone unnoticed in Russia, NATO’s biggest threat.

Any deterrence of Russia relies on ensuring that President Vladimir Putin is convinced that NATO will retaliate should he expand his war beyond Ukraine. Right now, that does not seem to be the case.

“It’s a major upheaval for Europe, and we are watching it,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted last week.

Filling up the bucket

Criticized by US leaders for decades over low defense spending, and lashed relentlessly under Trump, European allies and Canada agreed in July to significantly up their game and start investing 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.

The pledge was aimed at taking the whip out of Trump's hand. The allies would spend as much of their economic output on core defense as the United States — around 3.5% of GDP — by 2035, plus a further 1.5% on security-related projects like upgrading bridges, air and seaports.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has hailed those pledges as a sign of NATO’s robust health and military might. He recently said that “fundamentally thanks to Donald J. Trump, NATO is stronger than it ever was.”

Though a big part of his job is to ensure that Trump does not pull the US out of NATO, as Trump has occasionally threatened, his flattery of the American leader has sometimes raised concern. Rutte has pointedly refused to speak about the rift over Greenland.

Article 5 at stake

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in 1949 to counter the security threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and its deterrence is underpinned by a strong American troop presence in Europe.

The alliance is built on the political pledge that an attack on one ally must be met with a response from them all — the collective security guarantee enshrined in Article 5 of its rule book.

It hinges on the belief that the territories of all 32 allies must remain inviolate. Trump’s designs on Greenland attack that very principle, even though Article 5 does not apply in internal disputes because it can only be triggered unanimously.

“Instead of strengthening our alliances, threats against Greenland and NATO are undermining America’s own interests,” two US senators, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Lisa Murkowski, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

“Suggestions that the United States would seize or coerce allies to sell territory do not project strength. They signal unpredictability, weaken deterrence and hand our adversaries exactly what they want: proof that democratic alliances are fragile and unreliable,” they said.

Even before Trump escalated his threats to seize control of Greenland, his European allies were never entirely convinced that he would defend them should they come under attack.

Trump has said that he doesn’t believe the allies would help him either, and he recently drew more anger when he questioned the role of European and Canadian troops who fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan. The president later partially reversed his remarks.

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed criticism that Trump has undermined the alliance.

“The stronger our partners are in NATO, the more flexibility the United States will have to secure our interests in different parts of the world,” he said. “That’s not an abandonment of NATO. That is a reality of the 21st century and a world that’s changing now.”

A Russia not easily deterred

Despite NATO’s talk of increased spending, Moscow seems undeterred. The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said this week that “it has become painfully clear that Russia will remain a major security threat for the long term.”

“We are fending off cyberattacks, sabotage against critical infrastructure, foreign interference and information manipulation, military intimidation, territorial threats and political meddling,” she said Wednesday.

Officials across Europe have reported acts of sabotage and mysterious drone flights over airports and military bases. Identifying the culprits is difficult, and Russia denies responsibility.

In a year-end address, Rutte warned that Europe is at imminent risk.

“Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured,” he said.

Meanwhile in Russia, Lavrov said the dispute over Greenland heralded a “deep crisis” for NATO.

“It was hard to imagine before that such a thing could happen,” Lavrov told reporters, as he contemplated the possibility that “one NATO member is going to attack another NATO member.”

Russian state media mocked Europe's “impotent rage” over Trump's designs on Greenland, and Putin's presidential envoy declared that “trans-Atlantic unity is over.”

Doubt about US troops

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is due to meet with his counterparts at NATO on Feb. 12. A year ago, he startled the allies by warning that America’s security priorities lie elsewhere and that Europe must look after itself now.

Security in the Arctic region, where Greenland lies, will be high on the agenda. It’s unclear whether Hegseth will announce a new drawdown of US troops in Europe, who are central to NATO’s deterrence.

Lack of clarity about this has also fueled doubt about the US commitment to its allies. In October, NATO learned that up to 1,500 American troops would be withdrawn from an area bordering Ukraine, angering ally Romania.

A report from the European Union Institute for Security Studies warned last week that although US troops are unlikely to vanish overnight, doubts about US commitment to European security means “the deterrence edifice becomes shakier.”

“Europe is being forced to confront a harsher reality,” wrote the authors, Veronica Anghel and Giuseppe Spatafora. “Adversaries start believing they can probe, sabotage and escalate without triggering a unified response.”

Features

A Bullet Shattered Her Knee. Now a Gaza Teen's Chances of Walking Depend on Rafah Border Crossing

Islam Saleh, who was injured in her left leg in an Israeli strike on a school shelter in Jabalia in 2024, sits in a wheelchair inside her family’s tent in Zawaida, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, as she awaits permission to travel outside Gaza for treatment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Islam Saleh, who was injured in her left leg in an Israeli strike on a school shelter in Jabalia in 2024, sits in a wheelchair inside her family’s tent in Zawaida, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, as she awaits permission to travel outside Gaza for treatment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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A Bullet Shattered Her Knee. Now a Gaza Teen's Chances of Walking Depend on Rafah Border Crossing

Islam Saleh, who was injured in her left leg in an Israeli strike on a school shelter in Jabalia in 2024, sits in a wheelchair inside her family’s tent in Zawaida, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, as she awaits permission to travel outside Gaza for treatment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Islam Saleh, who was injured in her left leg in an Israeli strike on a school shelter in Jabalia in 2024, sits in a wheelchair inside her family’s tent in Zawaida, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, as she awaits permission to travel outside Gaza for treatment. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Rimas Abu Lehia was wounded five months ago when Israeli troops opened fired toward a crowd of hungry people mobbing an aid truck for food in Gaza and a bullet shattered the 15-year-old Palestinian girl's left knee.

Now her best chance of walking again is surgery abroad. She is on a long list of more than 20,000 Palestinians, including 4,500 children, who have been waiting — some more than a year — for evacuation to get treatment for war wounds or chronic medical conditions, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, The AP news reported.

Their hopes hinge on the reopening of the crucial Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a key point under the nearly 4-month-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Israel has announced the crossing would open in both directions on Sunday.

The Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza said Friday that “limited movement of people only” would be allowed. Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said Israel will allow 50 patients a day to leave; others have spoken of up to 150 a day.

That's a large jump from about 25 patients a week allowed to leave since the ceasefire began, according to UN figures. But it would still take anywhere from 130 to 400 days of crossings to get everyone in need out.

Abu Lehia said her life depends on the crossing opening.

“I wish I didn’t have to sit in this chair,” she said, crying as she pointed at the wheelchair she relies on to move. “I need help to stand, to dress, to go to the bathroom.”

Evacuations are critical as Gaza hospitals are decimated Israel’s campaign in Gaza after the Hamas October 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war has decimated the territory’s health sector — the few hospitals still working were overwhelmed by casualties. There are shortages of medical supplies and Israel has restricted aid entry.

Hospitals are unable to perform complicated surgeries for many of the wounded, including thousands of amputees, or treat many chronic conditions. Gaza’s single specialized cancer hospital shut down early in the war, and Israeli troops blew it up in early 2025. Without giving evidence, the military said Hamas militants were using it, though it was located in an area under Israeli control for most of the war.

More than 10,000 patients have left Gaza for treatment abroad since the war began, according to the World Health Organization.

After Israeli troops seized and closed the Rafah crossing in May 2024 and until the ceasefire, only around 17 patients a week were evacuated from Gaza, except for a brief surge of more than 200 patients a week during a two-month ceasefire in early 2025, according to WHO figures.

About 440 of those seeking evacuation have life-threatening injuries or diseases, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1,200 patients have died while waiting for evacuation, the ministry said Tuesday.

A UN official said one reason for the slow pace of evacuations has been that many countries are reluctant to accept the patients because Israel would not guarantee they would be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue. The majority of evacuees have gone to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Türkiye.

He said it wasn't clear if that would change with Rafah's opening. Even with "daily or almost daily evacuations,” he said, the number is not very high. Also, Israel has said it will only allow around 50 Palestinians a day to enter Gaza while tens of thousands of Palestinians hope to go back.

Israel has also banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began, the official said — a move that cut off what was previously the main outlet for Palestinians needing treatment unavailable in Gaza.

Five human rights groups have petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice to remove the ban. The court has not ruled. Still, one cancer patient in Gaza was allowed to travel to the West Bank for treatment on Jan. 11, after the Jerusalem District Court accepted a petition in his case by the Israeli rights group Gisha.

Thousands of cancer patients need evacuation Gaza has more than 11,000 cancer patients and some 75% of the necessary chemotherapy drugs are not available, the Health Ministry said. At least 4,000 cancer patients need urgent treatment abroad, it added.

Ahmed Barham, a 22-year-old university student, has been battling leukemia. He underwent two lymph node removal surgeries in June but the disease is continuing to spread “at an alarming rate,” his father, Mohamed Barham, said.

“There is no treatment available here," the elder Barham said.

His son, who has lost 35 kilograms (77 pounds), got on the urgent list for referral abroad this past week but still doesn’t have a confirmation of travel.

“My son is dying before my eyes,” the father said.

Desperate for Rafah to open Mahmoud Abu Ishaq, a 14-year-old, has been waiting for more than a year on the referral list for treatment abroad.

The roof of his family home collapsed when an Israeli strike hit nearby in the southern town of Beni Suhaila. The boy was injured and suffered a retinal detachment.

“Now he is completely blind,” his father, Fawaz Abu Ishaq said. “We are waiting for the crossing to open.”

Abu Lehia was wounded in August, when she went out from her family tent in the southern city of Khan Younis, looking for her younger brother, Muhannad, she told The Associated Press. The boy had gone out earlier that morning, hoping to get some food off entering aid trucks.

At the time, when Gaza was near famine, large crowds regularly waited for trucks and pulled food boxes off them, and Israeli troops often opened fire on the crowds. The Israeli military said its forces were firing warning shots, but hundreds were killed over the course of several months, according to Gaza health officials.

When Abu Lehia arrived at the edge of a military-held zone from which the trucks were passing, dozens of people were fleeing as Israeli troops fired. A bullet hit Abu Lehia in the knee, and she fell to the ground screaming, she said.

At the nearby Nasser Hospital, she underwent multiple surgeries, but they were unable to repair her knee. Doctors told her she needs knee replacement surgery outside Gaza.

Officials told the family last month that she would be evacuated in January. But so far nothing has happened, said her father, Sarhan Abu Lehia.

“Her condition is getting worse day by day,” he said. “She sits alone and cries.”

Features

How Far Will He Go? Trump’s Options for US Action Against Iran

An Iranian woman walks next to an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, 29 January 2026. (EPA)
An Iranian woman walks next to an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, 29 January 2026. (EPA)
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How Far Will He Go? Trump’s Options for US Action Against Iran

An Iranian woman walks next to an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, 29 January 2026. (EPA)
An Iranian woman walks next to an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, 29 January 2026. (EPA)

US President Donald Trump has threatened military action against Iran over its crackdown on protesters, while still for now appearing to leave the door open for negotiations over the country’s controversial nuclear program.

But should Trump, after weeks of American threats and counter-threats from Tehran, finally decide to order military action after already sending a US aircraft carrier to the region, he faces another dilemma over what form the intervention should take.

Such action could replicate American strikes during Israel's June war against the country, enforce economic strangulation by targeting the energy sector or amount to a bid to replace the theocratic system under supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

- Venezuela economic pressure scenario

Trump's relatively cautious stance so far has sparked speculation he could target Iranian energy infrastructure and squeeze its oil exports, mimicking a strategy Washington used over Venezuela.

This policy earlier this month led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, with Trump then working with the remnants of his former administration.

The US naval group in Middle East waters could look to block "dark fleet vessels" carrying Iranian oil and put pressure on Iran's oil exports, said Farzan Sabet, managing researcher of the Sanctions and Sustainable Peace Hub at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

"And that pressure can be gradual, similar to what we saw in Venezuela. It could play out over days, weeks, months, it's hard to foresee, but possibly longer," he said, while acknowledging that Trump was playing "his cards very close to his chest".

The naval group, repeatedly described as an "armada" by Trump, consists of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its more than 80 aircraft, as well as its escort of three destroyers, equipped with anti-missile capabilities and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

- Strikes on military and IRGC targets

If Trump decides on a course of military action, prime targets would be bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its youth militia, the Basij, which are accused by rights groups of taking a frontline role in the deadly crackdown on the protests that according to rights groups left thousands dead.

Using Tomahawk missiles and combat aircraft, the United States could strike positions of the Basij and the IRGC forces, "particularly those forces that participated and continue to participate in targeting Iranian protesters", said independent military researcher Eva J. Koulouriotis.

She said US intelligence, helped by Israel's Mossad spy agency, has "a clear picture" of those forces and their location nationwide.

"Such a strike would serve as a direct warning to the Iranian regime," she said.

During its June war against Tehran, Israel showed its deep intelligence penetration of Iran by killing senior security officials including the IRGC's chief and the armed forces chief of staff in targeted strikes based on location intelligence.

In a "harsh but measured strike", the United States could target "operations command and senior officers involved in mass killings carried out by the Iranian regime", she said.

- Massive strikes and regime change bid -

Iran's theocratic system has been in place since the 1979 revolution led by Khomeini that ousted the largely pro-Western shah.

Relations with the United States were cut in the wake of the hostage siege of the US embassy in Tehran that began that year and have remained severed ever since.

Under Khomeini, the revolution survived the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Since Khamenei took over in 1989, he has managed to keep the system in place despite economic sanctions and repeated protests.

As well as the so-called "armada", Washington already has a heavy deployment of military resources in the region with dozens of aircraft deployed at the air bases of Al Udeid in Qatar and Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates.

"The American objective is to destabilize the regime," said David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum (AMEF) think-tank.

"So there is really a strategy that will aim to paralyze it, to disrupt the chain of command" marked by the physical "elimination" of Khamenei, his close advisors and senior IRGC generals, he added.

But he said: "The regime is still relatively solid and resilient, it will not be an easy task", especially as "the Guards have anticipated this scenario".

Sabet said it would appear for now that Washington "would prefer something limited, where they can continue the process of weakening the system while minimizing the country's desire -- and to some extent its ability, but mostly its desire -- to carry out larger-scale retaliation".