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

Acts of Terror Against Israelis

"[In addition to directing raids during the assault on southern Israel, Khawajiri] secured Hamas terrorist activity in the Shifa Hospital and was in command of Hamas's forces fighting against IDF soldiers in the Shati area."

"He was also responsible for carrying out numerous acts of terror against Israelis."

Israel Defense Forces statement

Representatives from different embassies stand among people fleeing from the Gaza Strip as they arrive in the Egyptian part of the Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian enclave, on Dec. 3, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. AFP via Getty Images

 

Calls were renewed in the Gaza Strip for mass evacuations from the southern town of Khan Younis, as the Israeli military continued to widen its ground offensive, with about 200 Hamas targets being targeted and struck. The IDF has turned its attention from Gaza's north toward the south, following Hamas movements and planning to target the terrorist group's infrastructure and operative presence in the south. The misfortune of displaced Gazan civilians is that having been instructed to leave the north and turn south, they are faced with a similar situation in reverse.

Throughout the Gaza Strip overnight Sunday, into Monday morning Arab and Israeli media reported ongoing attacks, including an operation in the southern Gaza Strip near Rafah and Khan Yunis while Shejaiya in the north long with the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City also come under attack. Anywhere and everywhere Hamas inserted itself and its weapons depots and rocket launchers among crowded civilian enclaves, there the attention of the IDF swivelled relentlessly.

Israel will not be dissuaded, its resolve to rid itself of the constant lethal menace of Hamas attacks is irreconcilable with any further truces that only serve to enable Hamas to regroup, restock and rest before once again gaining momentum to challenge the IDF's plan for the terror group's complete eradication. Only then will Gaza and the Palestinians who live there be able to eventually reconstruct themselves into a living semblance of civilizational norms and future peace and prosperity. In the meanwhile, rocket fire from Gaza into Israel continues.

In the followup to Hamas's unspeakable sadism in southern Israel on October 7, the response by the Israeli military in its intention to wipe out the terrorist group's functionality and membership has claimed collateral damage familiar in all wars, when civilian populations suffer, but this time with the addition of a population being exploited as a human shield whom Hamas has taught to relish the prospect of martyrdom for the Hamas cause of extirpating Israel and slaughtering Jews.

 

Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images  This picture taken from the southern Gaza Strip shows a rocket fired at Israel and smoke trails on Dec. 3, 2023.

Airstrikes and explosions were heard by nearby residents in and around Khan Yunis following leaflets being dropped by the IDF warning people to relocate further south. Terrorist infrastructure installed in a Beit Hanoun school used to attack Israeli forces was destroyed by the IDF Negev Brigade. In the process two tunnel shafts were discovered within the school complex, one of which included an area for cargo and weaponry.

Shati Battalion commander Haitham Khawajiri, a Hamas commander responsible in the October 7 massacre, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. On Sunday IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi noted that the IDF began its ground offensive in the southern section of the strip, north of the city of Khan Yunis. The military was expanding the ground offensive to "all areas" of the enclave, announced IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

 

Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images   This picture taken from southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on Dec. 3, 2023, shows smoke billowing over the Palestinian enclave during Israeli bombardment amid continuing battles between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

 

A map dividing southern Gaza into dozens of blocks was published for the purpose of "precise instructions" given to residents where they were best to evacuate to, with the IDF pursuing Hamas with "maximum force" both in the north and south, at the same time attempting to minimize civilian harm. Despite which some among the Palestinians ignored past evacuation orders, asserting they feel no safer elsewhere and plan to remain where they are, taking their chances. As far as Israel is concerned, their targets are the Hamas operatives, not the civilian population; civilian casualties that ensue are the responsibility of a terrorist group that elects deliberately to operate within residential neighbourhoods.

Aside from the warning leaflets dropped over Gaza, phone calls and radio and television broadcasts have also been used as means by which to urge people to leave specified areas due to come under bombardment. During the ceasefire that began on November 24, ending on December 1, a total of 84 Israeli children and women, along with 24 foreign nationals who were abducted were released by Hamas into the care of the International Red Cross, leaving 136 hostages still in the hands of the terrorists.

Palestinians survey the destruction caused by the Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images