Though ham-handed, report on Gazan anger at Hamas appears to reflect waning support

Individuals in Strip say Palestinians no longer cheer rocket fire and some express happiness with defeat of terror organization, but say it’s time for Israel to end the war as well

For the first time since war broke out over a year ago, Israel’s military permitted a journalist in Gaza to speak to Palestinian civilians there last week. The result, aired by Channel 12 news on Sunday, offered a significantly filtered peek into the mindset of displaced Gazan women and children from Jabalia in northern Gaza.

Against a backdrop of debris, dust and armed Israeli soldiers, some residents speaking to the channel’s Palestinian affairs reporter Ohad Hemo vented their frustration at Hamas, shouting and cursing the terror group ruling Gaza for the devastation it wreaked on their lives.

“I swear I was happy when you killed [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, who caused destruction and killed our children,” one woman was filmed shouting. “God willing you’ll destroy them.”

For over a year, Israeli and foreign journalists have only been able to enter Gaza from Israel under IDF oversight and were taken solely to areas devoid of civilians to document the military’s activities. CNN’s Clarissa Ward appears to have been the sole Western journalist who independently crossed into Gaza, speaking to Palestinians inside a field hospital in December.

Hamas also strictly controls reporting out of Gaza and has threatened journalists who report on the group’s terror activities. For the past year, the only major outlet allowed by Hamas to operate inside the Gaza Strip has been Al Jazeera, which is known to have close ties with the terror group, portraying it as a “resistance movement.”

To some observers, Hemo’s report appeared to be a piece of clumsy propaganda, portraying a sanitized view of Gazans supposedly welcoming the Israelis as liberators rather than capturing a balanced view of Gazan sentiment. Many of the comments dovetailed neatly with claims the army has made of evacuating Gazan civilians expressing anger at Hamas.

Given the famine and devastation many Gazans have gone through, some have concluded that respondents were speaking under pressure, and might have directed their rage toward Israel as well for bombing their homes had they not been speaking to an Israeli journalist in front of Israeli soldiers as they traversed an Israeli-administered evacuation zone to escape Israeli fire.

“In vain I waited for the frame to open up a bit and for Hemo to show Israelis the incomprehensible scope of destruction, which would perhaps explain why a line of desperate, tired, thirsty and hungry refugees were standing in front of his cameras, willing to say exactly what the soldiers standing outside the frame wish to hear,” wrote Haaretz’s Shany Littman.

Even those on the far-right were unimpressed, complaining that the comments did not reflect their view of all Gazans as Hamas supporters undeserving of sympathy. “Tonight in reality: the abhorrence of the propagandist media and the understanding of the Israeli public that there is not a single person [in Gaza] who is innocent,” tweeted one prominent settler extremist in response to a promo for the report.

Yet the comments captured by Hemo did accurately reflect the view of at least some inside Gaza, according to three individuals who recently spoke with The Times of Israel. (Their names have been changed for safety.)

Polls by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also point to waning support for Hamas among Gazans, with only 39 percent in the Strip reporting a positive view of the group in September, down from 64% in June.

Mark, a European aid worker managing logistics for a large humanitarian organization in Deir al-Balah, reported that when Hamas fires rockets, a rare occurrence these days, only teenagers seem to cheer on the street.

“Adults then invariably tell them there is nothing to cheer about. Every rocket that is fired causes trouble,” he said. “It will elicit an Israeli reaction and bombings for the following week.”

“People have come to see Hamas as a problem. I have yet to come across any adult who openly supports Hamas or claims it can bring a solution,” Mark added.

Khaled, a 30-year-old Palestinian man living in a crowded encampment for displaced Gazans in the south of the Strip, depicted general frustration with the terror group. His conversation with The Times of Israel was facilitated by the US-based Center for Peace Communications, which has sought to broadcast the sentiments of anti-Hamas Gazans to the world. (In January 2023, The Times of Israel published a series of shorts produced by the center.)

“People hate Hamas more and more,” said Khaled, who was an opponent of the group before October 7 and has been jailed by Hamas in the past. “What they need now is peace.”

Khaled’s sentiments were echoed by Rashid, an anti-Hamas activist from Deir al-Balah who was previously jailed by the group for his participation in the 2019 “We want to live” protest movement.

“Most people in Gaza are against Hamas; they want a future without it,” he said. “One good thing about the war is that they can now curse it openly on the streets without fear of retaliation.”

“There was some optimism after Sinwar’s killing, with people hopeful that a ceasefire was near and normalcy would return – even among some Hamas supporters,” Rashid noted.

Despite the decapitation of the Hamas leadership, a ceasefire still seems elusive, extending the hardship of Gaza’s civilians. “Without an Israeli decision to end the conflict, no one can put an end to the insane situation in the Gaza Strip. Following the collapse of Hamas governance, Gaza’s future rests in Israel’s hands,” Rashid said.

Power vacuum

While Hamas still attempts occasional attacks on IDF troops to create “victory images,” as one senior IDF officer recently told The Times of Israel, conversations with Gaza civilians indicate that the group is focused solely on survival, lacking the means to control the Strip.

“They’ve lost the people entirely, along with their authority over minds and words,” Rashid observed.

“Hamas has completely collapsed,” Khaled concurred. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t trying to regroup. It will keep trying indefinitely.”

According to Mark, Hamas’s remaining authority in the Strip consists of members of the Hamas-run Civil Defense agency in balaclavas managing traffic at some intersections with rifles.

The breakdown of its governance has forced the group underground, with the IDF reporting nearly 19,000 fighters killed. Local families and clans have since filled the power vacuum, some exerting control over entire areas through force.

Large family clans are a traditional feature of Gazan society. With the displacement of hundreds of thousands from the Strip’s north to the south, many of the clans also relocated, and tried to assert their authority over new areas or take control of certain trades, entering into turf wars with existing clans.

Gunfights between clans are not rare, Mark said, and sometimes result in casualties and deteriorate into bloody retaliatory feuds.

The chaotic situation has significantly hampered the work of aid organizations that need to deal with the clans, forcing them to negotiate with multiple chieftains, he added.

Rashid said that Hamas had allied with gangs connected to the clans, who act as its “mafia” within Gaza. These clans dominate the informal markets, where they enrich themselves by selling food and essential goods to civilians at inflated prices due to scarcity. Some clans also extort organizations and traders for payoffs in exchange for safe passage through areas they control.

Channel 12 reported in September that Hamas had raised $500 million by reselling stolen humanitarian aid, and that the money was partly used to recruit new gunmen.

Rashid confirmed that the terror group is attempting to recruit, but said that very few people were responding.

Over and out?

In September, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said that Hamas was finished as a military organization, and was only engaged in guerrilla warfare.

Two months on, the situation appears largely the same.

“In central Gaza, where I live, we don’t even feel like we’re at war anymore. There’s a sense of clinical death,” Rashid said. “Israel’s operations such as the ongoing one in Jabalia are merely an excuse to prolong the conflict. After all, Israel’s goal was to dismantle Hamas as a governing force, not eliminate every single Hamas member.”

While predicting that Hamas would attempt to declare victory the moment the IDF leaves Gaza, Rashid believes that “the center and the south of the Strip are ready for the ‘day after.”

Khaled agreed that Israel had nobody left to fight, calling for the IDF to ease up on suffering Gazan civilians.

“There is no justification to prolong the war. Israel has defeated Hamas and can end the conflict now, conducting targeted operations if necessary. There is no need to maintain the pressure on the civilian population. On the contrary, Israel needs to show goodwill toward civilians by establishing safe zones,” he said.

Khaled has advocated for “safe zones” within Gaza through discussions with unnamed Israeli “institutions.” These zones would allow “peace-minded” civilians to administer themselves away from Hamas and clan control. “What is needed now is political will from Israel. Unfortunately, there has been no response from Israeli authorities,” Khaled said.

On October 28, the Knesset passed two laws essentially barring the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel, and severely curtailing its activities in Gaza and the West Bank, despite widespread international opposition.

UNRWA – short for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – provides education, healthcare and food aid to millions of Palestinians across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Mark, the aid worker in central Gaza, warned that the shutdown of UNRWA will severely disrupt relief work.

“Many assume another UN organization can just replace UNRWA, but it’s not that simple,” he said. “UNRWA was massive, running schools, clinics and food distribution. Without it, these responsibilities now theoretically fall to Israel, as the occupying power.”

In contrast, Khaled, who grew up in a refugee camp and attended UNRWA schools, expressed little concern over losing the agency’s aid.

“Since the start of the war, UNRWA was supposed to distribute food, but all I have ever received was one bag of flour – and I have to feed a family of ten,” he said.

“We don’t want to live off aid forever,” he added. “We want to live like people in the Gulf, Europe or America. We want to develop a private economy, to work and be able to buy things. We don’t want to depend on UNRWA forever for a bag of flour or rice.” (Times of Israel)