Gaza City, Gaza - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to backing a criminal group in Gaza that has been accused of looting the already meager amount of aid being allowed into the territory.

Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.

The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks."

Knesset member and ex-defense minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu's direction, was "giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons."

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"What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?" Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media on Thursday.

"It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers."

Abu Shabab has been described as a gangster and disowned by his own family.

The ECFR said he was "reported to have been previously jailed by Hamas for drug smuggling. His brother is said to have been killed by Hamas during a crackdown against the group's attacks on UN aid convoys."

Hamas said the group had "chosen betrayal and theft as their path" and called on civilians to oppose them.

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It claimed it had evidence of "clear coordination between these looting gangs, collaborators with the occupation, and the enemy army itself in the looting of aid and the fabrication of humanitarian crises that deepen the suffering of" Palestinians.

Israel has been subjecting Gaza to what a growing number of legal experts, human rights organizations, and governments describe as a genocide.

Backed by the US, it has blocked the entry of all but a tiny sliver of aid, which is being distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a shadowy organization denounced by all established humanitarian groups. GHF has since suspended its operations.

Israeli forces have massacred scores of starving Palestinians gathering to collect food in degrading and dangerous conditions.