Disenchantment With Hamas? Too Little, Too Late

"It started October 7, and it wants to end it on its own terms. But time is ticking with no potential hope of ending this."

"Hamas is still seeking its slice of power."

"Hamas does not know how to get down from the tree it climbed."

Raed al-Kelani, 47, former Palestinian Authority government worker in Gaza

 

"If the death and hunger of their people do not make any difference to them, they do not need to make any difference to us."

"Cursed be everyone who trafficked in our blood, burned our hearts and homes, and ruined our lives."

Gaza photojournalist Motaz Azaiza 

"When you realize six months in or seven months in that Gaza is completely destroyed, your life as a Gazan is completely destroyed, that's where people are coming from when they are not supportive of Sinwar or Haniyeh."

Obada Shtaya, co-founder Institute for Social and Economic Progress

"Are there people in Gaza who blame Hamas? Of course."

"This is a natural thing in societies that some people are for and some people are against."

Basem Naim, Hamas spokesman

 

No one really knows how many of these voices exist. Palestinians who bitterly oppose Hamas. These are not necessarily, on the other hand, Palestinians whose humanitarian instincts were awoken with the news of the horrendous atrocities committed by Hamas operatives, by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, by the PLFP, and by ordinary Palestinians from Gaza who crossed the destroyed border openings from Gaza into Israel on October 7 to drive, bicycle, or 'helicopter' into southern Israel, converging in the early morning hours toward kibbutz farming communities and the Nova music festival.

If only, for them, it had ended there. The work done of humiliating the Israeli government, its military, its intelligence experts, as it went about its methodical work of destroying Jewish lives, from babies to the elderly, entire families whose homes went up in flames with them within. Jewish girls and women who were mutilated, gang-raped, murdered. A day of unrestrained savagery and barbaric bloodshed. The anguish and agony suffered by Jews found their malevolent counterpart in the joy taken by the sadists tasked by Hamas to slaughter them.

The terror in the minds and hearts of the 240 hostages, the female IDF soldiers whose initial alerts had been ignored. The confusion and fear in the thoughts of children taken by violent strangers from their homes in Israel, into Gaza, victims of a plan to use their young lives as collateral in future prisoner exchanges between a bereft Israel and a confident terrorist group. A terrorist group that factored in the deaths of their own populations while using them as human shields, knowing the reputational damage it would do to the Israel Defense Forces in the West.

 

Hamas has been criticized by human rights groups for its suppression of civil liberties  Getty Images

 

The Palestinians who today are bitterly opposed to Hamas discovered this frame of mind, when it became abundantly clear that it was not only Israelis their terrorist government calculated as a means to an end, but they themselves, the ordinary people of Gaza who now suffer their own version of death and destruction, the agony of displacement, of never knowing when another precision bomb targeting the Hamas operatives seeking shelter in their schools, hospitals, mosques and the plenitude of tunnels will also strike them.

On the very day of the attack, it was a matter of jubilation among Palestinians that their very own terrorist government was delivering a lethal blow of immense proportions to the Jews living geographically on territory they claimed as theirs, ancestral rights be damned. Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank felt vindicated for the limitless hate they were taught to nurture, regarding Jews as colonialist usurpers squatting on Palestinian land.

Immediately following the gruesome events of October 7, Palestinians expressed reverence for the exploit of their Hamas leaders, extolling their 'courage' and military prowess in subduing the 'occupation' in their exquisitely planned and executed mass atrocity with its celebrated death count. And then, suddenly, they found themselves devastated by the response, for every action has its consequences and theirs should have been anticipated, but evidently was not. The new reality of tens of thousands dead was a counterpart exchange for October 7.

Now, a handful of Gazans express their rage at Hamas, yet even so, holding Israel to blame for everything that has destroyed their insular world. Hamas may have been responsible for provoking Israel into invading Gaza for the purpose of eradicating Hamas which has promised endless October 7s, but it is Israel that has pummeled Gaza into rubble, deprived Gazans of their lives, their homes, their future. 

 

Palestinian women walk by ruined buildings in central Gaza, Getty Images

 

Mr. al-Kelani, formerly a functionary of Fatah/Palestinian Authority, now distributes food aid in shelters to displaced Gazans. Even while Gazans understand Hamas was aware its actions would start a war causing heavy civilian casualties, failing to provide food, water or shelter for survival of the population it governed, they also knew that leaders of Hamas considered them fodder in the ignition of a permanent state of war, on the path of reviving the Palestinian 'cause'.

A March survey by the West Bank-based Institute for Social and Economic Progress polled Gazans about their feelings for Hamas leaders. To which some three-quarters opposed Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza-based Hamas leader, while a similar number opposed its political leader in exile, Ismail Haniyeh. Another more recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Gaza indicated support for Hamas leaders in Gaza to be somewhat higher.

"They could have surrendered a long time ago and saved us from all this suffering", offered one Gazan who fled to Egypt, stating her friends and family anticipate Hamas will be defeated in Gaza and only then will the war end. The feeling among some Gazans is that Hamas is determined to raise its global profile by championing universal Palestinian causes for which ordinary Gazans are destined to pay the price. While Hamas and Israeli hostages were safe in underground tunnels, they say, Gazans suffer above ground with no bomb protection.

"I do not want to sacrifice my life, my home and house for anyone."

"There is uncontrolled anger against Hamas."

Ameen Abed, resident of Jabaliya, northern Gaza

The UN estimates that around 250,000 people are affected by the Israeli evacuation orders  Reuters