Ever since the escalation following the October 7 attacks in 2023, as well as the subsequent wars that followed, Israel has changed its paradigm in Gaza toward a hybrid model remarkably similar to that of Iran. Although far from the strategic complexity and efficiency of the “Axis of Resistance,” which is managed by the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Israeli model of infiltration and build-up of paramilitary groups has escalated in similar ways.
Although paramilitary groups are not new to Gaza, this hybrid warfare approach by Israel shows that it is willing to explore and apply new unconventional means to exploit the enclave’s geopolitical vulnerabilities to its advantage. Since early 2025, news reports across different channels pinpoint the rise of a splinter group headed by a former Daesh commander, Yasser Abu Shabab, christened by its leader as “Popular Forces.” The group’s motivation is to confront Hamas, an organization that has controlled Gaza since 2007 and one that, earlier this year, was met with Palestinian protesters calling for an end to the war.
Hybrid Warfare and the Middle East
A research paper from the Journal of Strategic Security defines hybrid warfare as “a strategy used by states and non-state actors that seeks to maximize the effectiveness of force by combining regular and irregular tactics, as well as various military and non-military instruments.” The concept, originally attributed to Frank Hoffman, describes a specific type of conflict present in contemporary international relations.
Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and in particular since the ascent of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to power, the Islamic Republic’s geo-strategic understanding of the Middle East and Israel in particular has been based on this approach. Through the “Axis of Resistance” belt of paramilitary Shiite or Shiite-affiliated militias, Iran has sought to encircle Israel and render it geopolitically unstable. This effort, however, co-exists with gray zone strategies applied by Iran’s other rivals in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The emergence of Daesh and other Salaphist groups suggests an effort to contain Iran’s Pan-Shiism through similar tactics.
Gray zone and hybrid warfare notoriously blur the line between war and peace, in order to minimize the political cost of direct confrontation. The leveraging of international norms is another area that grants potential advantage to actors using this method, especially in the case of competitive regional powers in the Middle East. In addition to this, terrorism also works on behalf of gray zone strategies, but it does not necessarily belong to hybrid warfare methods.
When it comes to Israel’s response to these strategies, however, the approach has been consistently more inclined toward regular warfare. Ever since the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, as well as the Lebanon War that began in 1982, the Israel Defense Forces have risen to become a formidable actor capable of enforcing credible deterrence in the region through regular warfare. On top of this, Israel’s nuclear arsenal, allegedly contained in the Dimona desert, poses a significant threat to geopolitical stability and security in the region from the point of view of Pan-Islamic cohesiveness. It affects Iranian and Arab aspirations equally.
Israel’s Contemporary Approach: Multidomain and Hybrid Methods
Over the course of the past two years, Israel has consistently performed Multi-Domain Operations across its different fronts, including the creation of the Multi-Dimensional Unit of the IDF. Shortly after the beginning of the Gaza war, Colonel Roi Levy, from this very unit, was killed in the battle of Re’im. Additionally, the MDU was deployed in subsequent engagements in northern Gaza, combining the air and infantry domains through armed drones and precision mortars.
Notably, the incursion in Lebanon that took place at the beginning of 2024 combined aerial, infantry, and drone artillery tactics with the goal of breaking paramilitary militia Hezbollah from within. It succeeded in eliminating the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, via an airstrike in late 2024, a feat that created a triumphalist narrative.
When it comes to Gaza, the handling of a conflict so intimately divided between non-state military targets and civilians sheds light on Israel’s inability to properly enforce the hybrid model. Through regular warfare tactics, Israel’s response has broken down Gaza into a shatterbelt whose asymmetric enemy, Hamas, has thrived by obtaining significant political leverage, such as the taking of Israeli hostages. At the same time, the immense cost of civilian lives contributes to Hamas’ personal soft power, on a scale that Israeli narratives continuously fail to subvert.
During the Israel-Iran war of June 2025, which Trump has dubbed the “12-Day War,” Israel has performed surgical strikes guided by MDO coordinations, which resulted in the alleged neutralization of the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities in Iran. With the intervention of the United States against the Fordo nuclear reactor, the scale of the conflict became international, with one world power acting in defense of the Israeli pivot.
At the same time, Israel’s operations across Gaza, particularly in Rafah and Khans Younis, continue. The hybrid strategy involves the arming of Yasser Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces paramilitary group, with part of the unit being baptized the “Anti-Terror Service” by the IDF. The group’s tasks across the city of Rafah, particularly in the east, involves the inspection of buildings before IDF infantry forces can move further into the enclave, as well as the management of the key Karem Shalom crossing. The Israeli goal in the enclave, by arming this group, seems to be to drive Gaza to a civil war that breaks down Hamas’ de facto authority. Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on June 5 that Israel armed the Popular Forces group with AK-47s in what is a clear strategy to break Hamas’ grip over Gaza.
Gaza as Geopolitical Shatterbelt
It is obvious that Gaza has become the shatterbelt of both Israeli and Iranian regional strategies. Now, with the emergence of Shabab’s Popular Forces group and the Israeli-led Anti-Terror Service, both regional powers have adopted hybrid strategies to undermine each other through irregular warfare. The difference is that Israel is pairing this approach with regular warfare through the Israel Defense Forces.
It goes without saying that Shabab’s rise has resulted in a legitimacy crisis for the Palestinian cause, since its opposition to Hamas contradicts the narrative of national universalism espoused by the organization. Shabab’s claim that Hamas takes all international aid for itself, leaving Palestinians to starve, plausibly serves as an appeal for state actors guided by a liberal approach.
In hybrid warfare, military objectives are not only physical, but moral. The Israeli approach is attempting to curtail Palestinian soft power by nurturing the internal divisions within Gaza. At the same time, this apparent shatterpoint brings the issue of competitive radicalisms to the table. As it happened decades ago with the rise of the Islamic State during the onset of the Iraq War with Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, the Popular Forces under Shabab could potentially turn against Israel in the future. This seems like a plausible scenario if the Popular Forces manage to undermine Hamas’ influence in Gaza and take on a more powerful position within the enclave.
David Bastardo Martínez is a political scientist PHD candidate and Geopolitics Researcher working at Fundación Instituto de Estudios Avanzados, based in Caracas, Venezuela.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.
