Late last month, an anti-Hamas militia in Gaza published footage on Facebook showing one of its operatives using a several-meter-long drone, seemingly marking the first known public documentation of one of Gaza’s militias using a military-grade UAV.

“The People’s Army led by Ashraf al-Mansi announces the successful introduction of several drones into service,” the statement read.

“Maj. Gen. Ghassan Dehini has already announced the successful execution of several operations using them,” the announcement crowed, referring to the leader of another militia who is seen as the unofficial leader of the entire network of armed groups.

For the past year, Israel has provided groups like The People’s Army with weapons, air support, intelligence, food, and cigarettes, and has airlifted wounded militia members into Israel for medical care. It has also provided them with light weapons, largely rifles, but the video showed the militias may now be receiving more sophisticated arms as well.

A year after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first acknowledged that Israel was arming militias in Gaza, much about Jerusalem’s backing for the array of small armed groups operating in defiance of Hamas, including criminal gangs, remains vague and opaque, including what strategy, if any, Israel is pursuing.

“Gaza has become the capital of Israeli fantasies. And that includes the operation of these militias,” said Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs and a longtime critic of the idea of backing the armed groups.

In the year since Netanyahu’s announcement, the Israeli government has largely avoided publicly addressing the issue, and the IDF has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the militias’ activities.

At the same time, the militias themselves have increasingly publicized their activities on social media, providing a limited window into Israel’s Gazan allies.

Footage and statements released by the groups point to forces numbering at most a few hundred armed men. Their operations appear sporadic but ongoing, involving clashes with Hamas alongside efforts aimed at boosting their popularity among Gaza residents, such as distributing food ahead of Muslim holidays.

The militias do not appear to have posed any major challenge to Hamas’s continuing rule in populated parts of Gaza, and their broader operational goals remain unclear.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit declined to answer The Times of Israel’s questions about the militias, including whether the drones were supplied by Israel, as is widely suspected. The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on the militias’ ties to Israel. The Defense Ministry referred questions to the IDF.

Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center, told The Times of Israel that giving the groups UAVs was a major mistake and liable to backfire.

The militias “will eventually turn to terrorism themselves, or Hamas will get its hands on the drones and use them against us,” he predicted.

Many groups, few civilians

According to Milshtein, who studies Gaza closely and remains in contact with residents there, the militias have had little meaningful impact on the situation in the Strip, beyond damaging Israel’s interests.

Michael Barak, a senior researcher at Reichman University’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, agreed that the militias had had little tangible impact in Gaza over the past year.

However, he argued that the groups provided value to the IDF as an allied force willing to work with it against Hamas.

“It’s good for us as long as there is a Gazan population willing to cooperate with Israel, clear areas of mines or Hamas operatives,” he told The Times of Israel.

There appear to be five separate armed militias active in Gaza, based on social media posts. The groups, all of which were established between April and September 2025, are based in areas under Israel Defense Forces control, though they occasionally launch operations, including armed raids, into areas controlled by Hamas.

Some of the groups have previously said they were seeking to set up enclaves where civilians would live under their protection, free from Hamas.

In practice, however, nearly all of Gaza’s approximately 2 million residents live in the 40 percent of the enclave where Hamas continues to exercise governing power.

Last year, a senior member of the al-Shabab militia told The Times of Israel that about 5,000 civilians were living under the group’s protection in an area east of Rafah.

With the IDF barring Gazan civilians from crossing the Yellow Line demarcating the de facto border of the area controlled by Hamas, Palestinians have no way to reach the militia-controlled zones even if they wanted to.

“The Palestinian street today does not want Hamas,” said Hussam al-Astal, who leads a militia operating east of Khan Younis. “People are exhausted from all of this, they do not want Hamas anymore, people want to live. Thousands are telling us they are waiting for the IDF to tell them they can move into........

© The Times of Israel