Hamas Turns Its Guns Inward as Gaza Collapses Into Clan Warfare
NEED TO KNOW
Hamas Turns Its Guns Inward as Gaza Collapses Into Clan Warfare
ISRAEL/ WEST BANK & GAZA
In Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood in mid-October, masked gunmen forced seven men, blindfolded and bound, to their knees in a public square. As the crowds gathered, the shooting began.
The executions, captured on video, came just days after a ceasefire agreement was to bring peace to Gaza. Instead, Hamas isn’t fighting Israel anymore. It is fighting Palestinians.
And with Israel, the US, and Gulf states all backing different factions, Gaza risks becoming a fragmented battlefield of competing militias. That has led to worries about Gaza collapsing into another war, but this time an internal one.
“What we are witnessing today signals the onset of an internal Palestinian confrontation – a slide toward civil war,” said Mansour Abo Kareem, a Gaza-based political researcher, in an interview with the Media Line. “All the conditions for such a conflict are now present.”
Since the truce was signed in early October, Hamas has killed dozens of people in clashes with rival armed groups. Family-based militias known as “hamulas” have seized control of neighborhoods, distributed aid on their terms, and openly challenged Hamas fighters weakened by two years of Israeli military operations.
The violence erupted almost immediately after the peace deal took effect in early October. Clashes between Hamas forces and the Abu Wardah clan near Gaza City’s port left at least five dead. But the worst fighting came in battles with the Doghmush clan, where at least 27 people died, including eight Hamas operatives.
“Children are screaming and dying – they are burning our houses,” a Doghmush family member told the Israeli news portal Ynet. “We are trapped.”
Videos showed masked Hamas gunmen shooting blindfolded prisoners in front of cheering crowds. The Arrow Unit, Hamas’s enforcement wing, posted the footage with a warning: “This is the fate of every traitor to the homeland and to (our) religion,” according to the Long War Journal.
The executions signal deep worry within the group, Palestinian analyst Akram Attallah told the Times of Israel.
As rival groups operate beyond their usual territories, they pose a rising threat to Hamas.
The street violence reflects deeper fractures inside the group itself. It is divided between its political leadership abroad – including figures in Doha who negotiated the ceasefire – and hardline commanders inside Gaza who see disarmament as surrender. Some local commanders have reportedly rejected orders from the external leadership, Reuters noted, casting doubt on the group’s intention to disarm.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s clans have fractured into two opposing coalitions. One faction, organized under the pro-Hamas Higher Commission for Palestinian Tribes led by Husni al-Mughni, has defended the crackdown against what they call “Israeli-backed gangs,” looters and drug traffickers, the Palestine Chronicle reported. Clans like the al-Mujaida family quickly declared “full support” for Hamas and agreed to hand over weapons.
But a rival coalition of clans has resisted. The Doghmush clan issued a statement expressing shock at “a distressing internal campaign targeting our innocent sons, involving killing, intimidation, torture, and burning of homes with their residents inside, without any justification,” according to CNN.
The family said it lost some 600 members during the war and firmly rejected “all attempts by the occupation to win it over or recruit it.”
Israel has been cultivating anti-Hamas clans as proxies with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledging financing these clans. The most prominent is Yasser Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces, which now controls aid distribution at key crossings.
“We maintain close ties with several Western countries, with the United States and even with Israel,” said Hossam al-Astal, commander of a rival militia in Khan Younis, in an interview with Ynet. “We want them to support residents who refuse Hamas rule.”
President Trump’s peace framework imagines Gaza overseen by an international authority and a technocratic government, with Hamas temporarily maintaining order while it disarms and the enclave transitions. But that ambiguity is being exploited from all sides. Ordinary Gazans are caught between them.
The fragility of the arrangement became clear when Israel halted aid and launched airstrikes on Oct. 19 after Hamas fighters killed two Israeli soldiers. Trump had warned that if the violence continues, “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”
Even so, he has said Hamas’s actions against “very bad gangs” are acceptable and that the administration had authorized the group to act temporarily as Gaza’s police force.
For Palestinians who survived months of bombardment, the prospect of another war is devastating. Many now fear their own rulers, saying they don’t believe Hamas will disarm, even as they worry about its clan rivals and Gaza’s criminal gangs as much as renewed Israeli airstrikes.
“It’s been two years with a complete loss of law and order,” aid worker Hanya Aljamal told the BBC from her home in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. “We need someone to take over. As unqualified as Hamas is to rule the Strip, they are a better option than the gangs.”
But Moumen Al-Natour, a Gazan lawyer, co-founder of the “We want to live” movement and a former political prisoner of Hamas, says Hamas must be eliminated at all costs, not only because its violence against Palestinians “has now become so intense and so visceral that you would think that their true enemy was Palestinians, not Israelis.”
“…(The) ceasefire has split Gaza into two alternate realities… On one side is a Gaza that is desperate for Trump’s plan to succeed; on the other is a Gaza that is being pulled back into the abyss once again,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post. It is impossible for these two Gazas to exist simultaneously for more than a moment in time, and soon enough one will consume the other.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
More than 132 Killed in Rio de Janeiro’s Deadliest Police Raid
BRAZIL
At least 132 people were killed this week during a massive police operation in Rio de Janeiro’s slums, or favelas, the deadliest in the state’s history, sparking outrage over the scale of the violence, the Washington Post reported.
On Tuesday, around 2,500 civil and military police officers launched raids in the Alemão and Penha favelas of northern Rio against Comando Vermelho (Red Command), one of Brazil’s most powerful criminal organizations.
Authorities said the operation aimed to “capture criminal leaders” and “counter the territorial expansion” of the group.
Gun battles erupted as gang members barricaded streets and used drones to attack officers. After more than 12 hours of fighting, police said they seized a “large quantity of drugs,” 118 weapons, and arrested more than 110 people, including 10 minors.
The death toll included four police officers and an undisclosed number of civilians, according to CNN.
Rio State Governor Cláudio Castro praised the operation, saying officers were “striking a hard blow against crime.”
Tuesday’s raid followed a year-long investigation into the Red Command, Brazil’s oldest active criminal organization, founded during the country’s military dictatorship and now a major transnational player in drug trafficking and extortion, according to InSight Crime.
Police raids against criminal groups are not uncommon in Rio de Janeiro and usually take place ahead of big international events – the city will soon host a series of global events related to the United Nations’ COP30 climate summit, Reuters noted.
But this operation has come under intense scrutiny for the scale of the violence.
The number of casualties was more than double the 28 people killed in the state’s previous deadliest police action, the 2021 Jacarezinho massacre, during Castro’s first term.
Brazil’s Federal Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski described Tuesday’s events as “extremely violent” and “deeply regrettable.”
Myanmar Rebels and Junta Sign Chinese-Mediated Ceasefire
MYANMAR
A major ethnic rebel group in Myanmar announced Wednesday that it has signed a ceasefire with the country’s military junta following China-mediated negotiations, easing months of heavy fighting in Myanmar’s northeast near the Chinese border, the Associated Press reported.
The deal with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) represents a significant win for Myanmar’s military government, which has regained territory ahead of the elections scheduled to begin on Dec. 28. Critics argue that the elections, from which the main opposition parties are excluded, are an attempt by the junta to legitimize the military’s rule.
The deal to halt the fighting was signed during talks mediated by China on Monday and Tuesday in Kunming, a Chinese provincial capital about 250 miles from the border with Myanmar. It took effect on Wednesday, according to a statement by the TNLA.
The announcement followed the rebels’ relinquishing control of Nawnghkio, Kyaukme, and Hsipaw – three important towns on a key highway linking central Myanmar to China – after a heavy military offensive by the army.
The TNLA also said it intends to withdraw troops from Mogok, the ruby-mining center in the upper Mandalay region, and the neighboring town of Momeik in the northern part of Shan state as part of the deal. The two towns had been under the TNLA’s control since July last year.
In return, Myanmar’s junta is to halt its ground offensives and airstrikes on the group’s remaining territories, according to the TNLA, which has no effective defense against airstrikes.
The TNLA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army. For decades, they have been fighting for increased autonomy from Myanmar’s central government and have a loose alliance with the pro-democracy resistance groups that arose following the military takeover four years ago.
In the past two years, the alliance captured and controlled important parts of northeastern Myanmar near the Chinese border and of western Myanmar. The TNLA alone captured 12 towns in an offensive.
Their advance slowed after a series of Chinese-brokered ceasefires earlier this year, which allowed the army to retake major cities.
China, which has significant economic and geopolitical interests in Myanmar, is worried about instability along its borders. It is also the most important foreign ally of Myanmar’s junta, which gained power after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
The military takeover triggered nationwide peaceful protests that escalated into civil war.
Anti-Turkish Protests Erupt in Montenegro After Stabbing Incident
MONTENEGRO
Hundreds of people protested in the Montenegrin capital Podgorica this week, chanting anti-Turkish slogans and lighting flares after a stabbing incident triggered a wave of xenophobic unrest in the small Balkan nation, Balkan Insight reported.
On Tuesday, police detained 11 people, including nine minors, during the demonstration, where crowds shouted “Turks, get out!” and vandalized property near government offices.
The demonstrations came days after the stabbing of a 25-year-old Montenegrin man in the capital’s Zabjelo district: Three Azerbaijani nationals and one Turk were allegedly involved, according to police.
Authorities have arrested two suspects and questioned around 40 others.
But the incident sparked a wave of anti-Turkish sentiment across the country over the weekend that saw businesses owned by Turkish nationals vandalized or set on fire, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty reported.
Some Turkish nationals have also reported being physically attacked, and over the weekend, crowds marched through largely Turkish neighborhoods chanting “Turks out” and “Kill the Turks.”
Police have detained at least eight people for hate speech and threats of violence.
The government sought to calm tensions by suspending a visa-free regime for Turkish citizens in order to “preserve public order and the safety of all citizens.”
Turkish nationals account for roughly 13 percent of Montenegro’s foreign residents, many of whom had benefited from visa-free travel.
The Turkish embassy said it had urged Montenegrin authorities to protect Turkish citizens, receiving assurances that “necessary measures will be taken.”
Meanwhile, opposition parties and rights groups condemned the government’s response, accusing it of “spreading collective hysteria” instead of addressing public safety.
DISCOVERIES
Go Fetch
From an early age, humans learn words and their associations. For example, infants know that forks are related to plates because both are used to eat.
Now, a new study found that dogs are also capable of categorizing objects by function, rather than just by similar appearance. This skill is known as “label extension.”
“We discovered that these Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs can extend labels to items that have the same function or that are used in the same way,” study author Claudia Fugazza said in a statement, adding that it’s similar to a person calling both a traditional hammer and a rock with the same name.
“The rock and the hammer look physically different, but they can be used for the same function,” she said. “So now it turns out that these dogs can do the same.”
Through playful interactions at home with their owners, a group of GWL dogs with no prior training learned two verbal labels, namely “Pull” and “Fetch.” The labels were applied to different types of toys they played with based on how the toys were used, rather than how they looked.
For example, if a toy was tugged, it was labeled as a Pull type, while if it was retrieved, it was a Fetch type.
The dogs showed they were capable of distinguishing between toys used for tugging versus fetching when their name – Pull or Fetch – was spoken, even when those toys did not have any obvious physical similarities.
The seven dogs in the group – six border collies and one blue heeler – were also able to remember those categorizations for long periods of time.
Then, new toys were added to the collection of the two distinct categories. While they were still played with by being tugged or retrieved, the “Pull” and “Fetch” labels were not spoken during the play session.
Researchers found that the dogs had learned to extend the functional labels they had learned previously to the new toys based on their experience in playing with them. When asked to bring a Pull or Fetch toy from the pile, the dogs chose the correct new toys more often than chance alone would allow.
“For these new toys, they’ve never heard the name, but they have played either pull or fetch, and so the dog has to choose which toy was used to play which game,” said Fugazza. “This was done in a natural setup, with no extensive training. It’s just owners playing for a week with the toys. So, it’s a natural type of interaction.”
The dogs’ ability to connect verbal labels to objects based on their functions, and apart from the toys’ physical appearance, indicates that they form a mental representation of the objects based on their experience with their functions, which they then remember, the team noted.
According to researchers, the study results provide insight into the evolution of basic language-related skills and their relationship to other cognitive abilities, including memory.