Jewish World Update Jul/Aug 2025
Will the West Heed the Gazans’ Call
by Bassem Eid
(JNS)— The people of Gaza finally turned on Hamas publicly in March by protesting in the streets. As a Palestinian human rights activist, I can’t say I’m shocked. Those of us who long for Palestinian governance free of violence and corruption have certainly waited long enough.
Thousands of Palestinians marched through the streets of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, chanting slogans like “Hamas terrorists” and even calling to free the hostages that Hamas abducted during its horrific invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. Simply put, many Palestinians in Gaza have had enough of the terror organization that oppresses them with an iron fist.
Hamas came to power in Gaza through a brutal act of military conquest in 2007 that involved throwing supporters of the Fatah opposition party off tall buildings, causing a complete political split with the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in the West Bank. Hamas was never elected to lead Gaza; and while it did win an election for the PA legislature in 2006, the PA suspended the legislature in 2007 and formally dissolved it in 2018. The PA’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, 89, was elected to a four-year term in 2005—now 20 years ago.
So much for Palestinian democracy. What kind of government has Hamas given Gazans instead? In a word, theocracy.
Hamas’s repression, inspired by a harsh interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, is brutal. Women require the presence of a male guardian to travel outside their homes. Children under Hamas rule are brainwashed into believing that Israelis and Jews, including civilians, are evil and must be destroyed—even at the cost of “martyrdom.” Those who do not strictly follow Sharia law often face torture and execution.
Hamas is turning the Gazan people into cannon fodder for its endless wars. It uses its own people as human shields to disguise military activities, including launching attacks from civilian sites like schools, hospitals, mosques, and churches. As for the lifesaving aid that the world—and Israel—delivered for the benefit of Gazan civilians, even at the height of the military action, Hamas stole and repurposed it to benefit itself. Hamas has even used civilian water pipes to make rockets to attack Israel.
Palestinian polling consistently shows that Hamas is much less popular in Gaza than in the West Bank. In September 2024, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that only 39% of Gazans supported Hamas, versus 75% in the West Bank. Similarly, only 29% of Gazans supported Hamas’s brutal leader, Yahya Sinwar, who planned and launched the October 7 attacks, versus 70% in the West Bank. The Gazan people, having actually suffered the reality of Hamas’s rule, are opposed to its hateful ideology, similar to the Europeans who fled the Eastern Bloc after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Hamas consistently attempts to present a falsely moderate face to the West. America’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff recently said that Hamas “duped” him into thinking it was interested in a deal to release the hostages and end the fighting. Of course, no such deal materialized from their discussions. Hamas’s core interest is controlling the Palestinian population, accumulating wealth and armed support from terror states like Iran and Qatar, and waging an endless war on Israel against the wishes of the Gazans themselves.
The Gazans’ March protests against Hamas were just the beginning. The people are well aware that it’s not only the captive Israelis but the whole Gazan population whom Hamas is holding hostage. It’s time to listen to the authentic voice of the Gazan people, not the terrorists who control their lives, and set them free by dismantling Hamas for good.
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