Armed gangs are vying to fill the vacuum left by Hamas in Israeli-occupied Gaza | CNN

When Sheikh Mohammed Abu Mustafa stepped out of his mosque in southern Gaza after leading afternoon prayers in early November, a gunman on a motorcycle pulled up and shot him dead. It was a targeted assassination that that an Islamist militant group said was carried out by local Israeli-backed militia. A Hamas-linked group later claimed that the slain imam was a jihadist who had concealed Israeli hostages during the Gaza war, and accused the hitman of belonging to a new Israeli-supported militia led by Hussam Al-Astal – a former prisoner in Hamas-ruled Gaza who is now openly working to topple the militant group that has ruled the territory with an iron first for nearly two decades. In a phone interview with CNN, Al-Astal denied that his men assassinated Sheikh Abu Mustafa but said he welcomed the death of any Hamas member. His obscure group, the self-styled Counter-Terrorism Strike Force, has taken control of a village in the Israeli-occupied part of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. From there, it carries out raids against Hamas while trying to grow its small domestic following. As the dust begins to settle after the brutal two-year war, Gaza has been split in two. Hamas is
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