After nearly a year and a half in which Palestinians in Gaza have endured mass destruction and collective destitution, they are making themselves heard. In recent days, thousands have participated in widespread protests in the besieged enclave, demanding the right to live in dignity and peace in their own homeland.
The main targets of protesters were Israel’s genocidal war and America’s new fantasies of erasure and removal as well as the complicity of Arab regimes and the West. Protesters were also particularly critical of Hamas and its costly form of resisting the Israeli occupation. Arabic media outlets like Al-Jazeera were also not spared for their uncritical coverage of Hamas.
Reminiscent of Gaza’s prewar “We Want to Live” movement, demonstrators in some of the most decimated areas of North Gaza chanted “The people want to overthrow Hamas” and “Hamas get out.” One protester summarized popular feelings well when he said, “We demonstrated today to declare that we do not want to die. Eventually, it is Israel that attacks and bombs, but Hamas also bears direct responsibility, as do all who define themselves as Arab and Palestinian leaders.”
Hamas’s response was true to its autocratic form. Rather than acknowledge the deep wells of collective rage and indignation at this never-ending war and the systematic degradation of human existence in Gaza, Hamas rode roughshod over Palestinian feelings and popular sentiment and threatened demonstrators with punishment.
First Hamas claimed that the demonstrations are against Israel as the occupier, not against them. Then it repressed protesters by force, dubbed them treasonous and divisive, and issued a statement with other militant groups that openly called protesters…
Auteur: Bashir Abu-Manneh
