A deadly struggle for power has begun in Gaza that has left dozens dead in clashes between Hamas and its bitter rivals.
At least 27 people have been killed in the deadly skirmishes between the terror group and armed members of the Dughmush family in Gaza City.
The two groups have reportedly been fighting since Saturday across Gaza’s main city, including near the Jordanian hospital in the west of the city.
The BBC reported that 19 Dughmush clan members and eight Hamas fighters have been killed since then.
But ordinary Gazans, who have suffered under the Israeli invasion of the Strip for just over two years, have also been affected by the skirmishes.
Locals told of scenes of terror as families, many of whom have already been forced to move from location to location, fled their homes under loud and heavy gunfire.
One resident said: ‘This time people weren’t fleeing Israeli attacks. They were running from their own people’.
Hamas and the Dughmush clan have a long and bitter rivalry that has resulted in numerous fights with each other over the years.
Palestinian police resume their duties to maintain security and regulate traffic across Gaza City, Gaza, following the ceasefire, on October 11, 2025
Hamas officials working within the government of the Gaza Strip said its forces were working to restore order and warned that ‘any armed activity outside the framework of the resistance’ would be dealt with.
Following two years of brutal conflict with Israel, which is drawing to a close with the signing of a peace deal, Hamas has been left severely weakened and appears to be consolidating control over the Gaza Strip.
Over the weekend, Hamas vowed to remove ‘outlaws and collaborators with Israel’ as it recalled its security forces to take back control of Gaza.
Some 7,000 gunmen were called on by Hamas to reassert control over areas of the enclave that had been vacated by Israeli forces during the two-year-long war.
The mobilisation order was issued via phone calls and text messages that read: ‘We declare a general mobilisation in response to the call of national and religious duty, to cleanse Gaza of outlaws and collaborators with Israel.
‘You must report within 24 hours to your designated locations using your official codes’.
Hamas units have already been deployed across several districts, while the militant group has already appointed five new governors, all with military backgrounds.
Images showed gun-wielding officers, several of them in plain clothes and others in blue uniforms, patrolling the streets as tens of thousands of Palestinians headed back to the heavily destroyed norther Gaza Strip.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel enter Gaza through Karem Abu Salem crossing and reach Khan Yunis under cease-fire agreement in Gaza on October 12, 2025
Palestinians rally around aid trucks which entered from the Karem Abu Salem crossing, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2025
Questions remain over who will govern Gaza as Israeli troops gradually pull back and whether Hamas will disarm, as called for in Trump’s ceasefire plan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that Israel might renew its offensive if Hamas does not give up its weapons.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced around 90 percent of the Gaza population of some two million, often multiple times. Many of them will find fields of rubble where their homes once stood.
