Hamas accused of brutal crackdown on protesters in Gaza

RNZ News

02-06-2025

By
Matthew Doran
, ABC Middle East correspondent and
ABC staff in Gaza
Palestinians have taken to the streets to protest against Hamas.
Photo:
ABC News
Hanging from the tarpaulin walls of Amal Ashraf Al Shafa'a's tent are three posters showing the faces of three young men.
She does not need those photos to remind her of the immense loss her family has experienced during the war in Gaza.
But in the midst of the chaos and destruction they take pride of place in her makeshift home in the territory's north.
"I lost three of my sons and now they have left behind orphans," she told the
7.30
programme.
"When I look at my grandchildren I am heartbroken - my children are gone."
With her grief looming over her Amal took to the streets alongside hundreds of other Palestinians to rail against Hamas in the days after Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
Amal Ashraf Al Shafa'a has photos of her three dead sons on the wall of her home.
Photo:
ABC News
The March demonstrations have been described as the largest anti-Hamas rallies since the war in Gaza began, following Hamas' deadly attacks on 7 October, 2023.
Palestinians expressed their anguish over the immeasurable devastation wrought by Israeli forces during the war, but laid blame at the feet of Hamas for allowing it to continue.
"Out Hamas, out!" the protesters chanted.
"The people want the fall of Hamas!"
One man, Rafed Rafed Mohammed Atta Al-Radi, was in the crowd as the demonstration erupted.
"We are asking Hamas to leave Gaza today, we won't wait any longer," he told the ABC.
"We want Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] to rule Gaza," he said.
Amal Ashraf Al Shafa'a joined the public protests against Hamas.
Photo:
ABC News
"We want him to govern Gaza because Hamas is destroying the people."
Despite battling cancer and needing urgent surgery, Amal said she felt she had to join the protest.
"I lost my children, so of course I want to demonstrate," she said.
"I want to shout, 'no to war, no to war'. Many are talking against the war and nothing happens.
"I support peaceful demonstrations asking for the end of the war, it is not wrong.
"We ask from the government that will rule to bring safety, security. Our children are hungry - we are very tired."
Protests broke out in the days after Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
Photo:
ABC News
Since the protests broke out there have been reports of deadly reprisals against those who took to the streets.
Amnesty International said it had documented "a disturbing pattern of threats, intimidation and harassment, including interrogations and beatings by Hamas-run security forces against individuals exercising their right to peaceful protest".
"It is abhorrent and shameful that while Palestinians in Gaza are enduring atrocities at the hands of Israel, Hamas authorities are further exacerbating their suffering by ramping up threats and intimidation against people simply for saying 'we want to live'," Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty International, said.
The family of one man, 22-year-old Odai Al-Rubai, said he was abducted and tortured for hours by Hamas before his body was dumped outside the family home.
"We are not opposed to resistance, we are opposed to the war itself," Amal said.
"We stand against the politics of Hamas and the ongoing killings, we cannot remain silent or passive."
Hamas has a reputation for ruling Gaza with an iron fist. In early May it announced it had executed six people and shot another 13 in the legs for alleged looting, and last week killed another four.
"A warning has been issued - those who ignore it bear full responsibility," the group said.
A protester carries a sign that reads "Hamas does not represent us".
Photo:
ABC News
"Let's not forget that Hamas as a movement, as a religious movement - and it's a political religious movement actually - has its own ideology, its own world view and its own way to do things in terms of culture, in terms of social life, and sometimes in terms of political dissent," Dr Hasan Ayoub, assistant professor of politics at An-Najah University in the West Bank, told
7.30
.
"Yes, Hamas at some points in Gaza, they practiced their own, let me call it, non-democratic, coercive tactics against political dissent."
In recent weeks the Committee to Protect Journalists has published testimony of journalists in Gaza being threatened and assaulted by Hamas for covering protests against the militant group.
Despite that reputation and the reported reprisals, Dr Ayoub is not convinced the recent protests would have angered Hamas.
"If you can find people in Gaza taking to the streets to protest a year-and-a-half of genocide, of being starved on such a systematic way, that's not a bad thing," he said.
"I think for Hamas, they don't mind and they don't see it as protests against them if people took to the streets, because it's against the silence of the entire world on what is happening in Gaza."
Dr Ayoub suggested the protests were misdirected fury at Israel for its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
"Let's assume that nothing of this, what I said, is true - that people really are spontaneously [protesting] because they are fed up to the back of their teeth of the situation. No one can blame them, it's very much understood," he said.
"But I have never heard of a people when, being exposed to genocide and to this terrifying amount of killing, will come out and protest against a liberation movement that is fighting in their favour.
"It never happened, not in the Palestinian history, not in any history in the world - so there is something that is not adding up here."
A man holds a sign that reads "Enough killing children" at a protest against Hamas.
Photo:
ABC News
Israel has repeatedly said its war in Gaza is against Hamas, and not the Palestinian people.
Although the devastating death toll, with more than 54,000 Palestinians now dead, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, showed the heavy civilian cost of the conflict and has led to serious accusations against the Israeli military of indiscriminate bombing and shelling of the strip.
Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza to, in its words, pressure Hamas to release the remaining 58 hostages still held captive - only 21 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Negotiations on another ceasefire and hostage deal have repeatedly stalled, with Hamas accusing Israel of refusing to commit to steps to formally declare an end to the war and withdraw its military from large swathes of Gaza it now controls.
A red line in negotiations for Hamas has been demands for the militant group to lay down its weapons - something it insisted would allow Israel to renege on any commitment to end the conflict.
Hamada Alza'anoun says Hamas "serves only the interests of their loyalists".
Photo:
ABC News
For Hamada Alza'anoun, the desperate situation facing his family and his people prompted him to join the protests.
Picking through the rubble of his former home, destroyed by Israeli bombs, he said Hamas' elite benefited from the war.
"We oppose their rule because it serves only the interests of their loyalists," he said.
"Even before the war, their actions were driven solely by the needs of their own supporters, while the rest of us were left without benefit - the only ones who gained were those aligned with them.
"As Palestinians, especially in Gaza, we are not against the resistance and we will never be against the resistance. However, during this war we stood against Hamas' policies."
Hamada said his house was not the only thing he had lost in the war.
Hamada Alza'anoun picks through the rubble of his destroyed home.
Photo:
ABC News
Like so many other Palestinians, numerous members of his family have been killed.
He feared Hamas' approach to the war, and negotiations to bring about a ceasefire, meant the risk of losing his own life was growing by the hour.
"We are asking for the end of the war that has reached all the people in Gaza," he said.
"Regardless of conditions, we want the war to end. Gaza people love life.
"We want life, we don't want death - as children, young men, we want to stay alive, we don't want to die."
In January, days before leaving office, then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed an interesting aspect about the impact of the war on the Gazan population.
"We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost," Blinken said.
"That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.
"We've long made the point to the Israeli government that Hamas cannot be defeated by a military campaign alone, that without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, Hamas, or something just as abhorrent and dangerous, will grow back."
The future governance of Gaza remains a contentious issue.
Hamas has said it is prepared to hand power to others, while refusing to lay down its arms.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank wants to unify the two occupied territories under its leadership - something Israel has said should never happen.
Palestinian National Initiative leader Mustafa Barghouti says his own party needs significant reform.
Photo:
ABC News / Hamish Harty
One of the leading Palestinian opposition politicians said the PA would need significant reform if it was to ever take control of Gaza, and the leading Fatah party would need to allow change.
Last year the various Palestinian factions all signed a declaration in Beijing about the future governance of Gaza once the war ended.
"They told us that they are ready to accept a national consensus government, which would mainly consist of independents, but a government that would be respected and accepted by all Palestinian parties," Palestinian National Initiative leader Mustafa Barghouti told
7.30
.
"We concluded that agreement, we signed it - Hamas signed it, Fatah signed it, everybody signed it."
Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has been president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005, and elections have not been held since.
He recently named a new vice-president, Hussein al-Sheikh - a move seen as appointing a successor.
Rival Barghouti insisted that was not good enough to ensure the PA is seen as a legitimate government.
"I'm surprised sometimes when people think that appointing somebody in a certain position is reform," he said.
"This is not reform, the reform is really when we have the right to have free democratic elections."
Barghouti argued the reason Fatah was reluctant to hold elections is because its power would be diluted, but said it must happen for the party to uphold its commitment to the Beijing declaration.
"I know the results, how will the results be - it will not be that Hamas will win majority, as some claim, but Fatah also will not get absolute majority," he said.
"It will be a pluralistic system.
"I think a pluralistic democratic system is the healthiest thing for Palestine. That's what you do in Australia, that's what people do in other countries. You rarely get a party that gets more than 50 percent but you have coalitions.
"And I think that's also what we need in Palestine."
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ABC