*Who is Ghassan al-Dahini?*
Ghassan Abdulaziz Muhammad al-Dahini was born on October 3, 1987, in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
His brother, Muhammad, hanged himself in prison following his arrest on drug trafficking charges.
Through his father, who was an official in the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Service, Ghassan al-Dahini joined the ranks of the PA’s security services at an early age. He currently holds the rank of first lieutenant and claims to be a “major.”
In the mid-aughts, the “Jaysh al-Islam” organization, which claimed to represent al-Qaeda in Palestine, recruited him due to his ideological extremism and appointed him as the official in charge of the Rafah area. The takfiri organization dismissed him shortly thereafter in what it described as “over a case of [his] homosexuality.”
Al-Dahini claims that he was in Syria in 2015 and fought with Jabhat al-Nusra. Back in Gaza, Al-Dahini was arrested several times on criminal charges by the security services, including in March 2020 and November 2022.
Ghassan al-Dahini belongs to the al-Tarabin tribe, the same tribe as the slain agent Yasser Abu Shabab. The two are related.
Yasser Abu Shabab recruited al-Dahinu into his militia and he became his right-hand man after the resistance’s “Arrow” (Sahem) unit eliminated Abu Shabab’s brother Fathi during a raid on its hideouts east of Rafah.
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For more, see: "How Do the Occupation’s Militias Turn Minors into Dangerous, Drugged Security Tools?" Pursuit of the Fifth Column, 27 July 2026; retrieved online (27 July 2026): https://t.co/pInoQHUqCZ
*Ghassan al-Dahini's Militia Using Child Soldiers East of the "Yellow Line"*
New testimonies reveal that Ghassan al-Dahini's self-styled "Popular Forces" collaborator militia--which works for the occupation and reportedly receives financial support from the UAE--has been using child soldiers to do its bidding. Even more shockingly, these reports note that these children have been given narcotics by the militia leaders.
Specifically, the case of Ahmed Raed Ayash, a 16-year-old from the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, exemplifies this new phenomenon. Ahmed is currently in eastern Rafah, residing with the militia led by the al-Dahini (colloquially known as “Raghlah”). A local source notes that: "the militia deliberately ensnared him in drug use to ensure his continued obedience. Despite his young age, the boy carries out highly dangerous security tasks. These include searching for tunnels and resistance fighters, firing directly at the tents of displaced people to terrorize them, and participating in dangerous training exercises and operations."