Yasser Abu Shabab is a well-known figure in Rafah. In this small city in the southern Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt and historically poorer than the northern towns of the enclave, he has a reputation as a small-time criminal and drug trafficker. He is also a member of the Abu Shabab clan, which is linked to the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, present on both sides of the border – in the Palestinian enclave as well as in Sinai. Just like Ibrahim al-Organi, an Egyptian businessman promoted to head of a tribal union tasked with securing the country’s borders, particularly against the Islamic State group (IS), whose branch long resisted the Egyptian army in northern Sinai.
Detained by Hamas security services, Abu Shabab was released amid the chaos of the war that descended on Gaza after the October 7 attack, when the grip of the Palestinian Islamist movement on the enclave began to loosen. Drug trafficking, in a territory quickly plunged into a state of malnutrition, was no longer profitable. Abu Shabab then re-emerged in 2024 in a new role: that of a looter.
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