Although President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan stated that Hamas could play no role in governing postwar Gaza, the terrorist group is still kidnapping and murdering Palestinians to maintain its grip on power, reports on Tuesday confirmed.
Terrified Gaza residents told the Times of Israel (TOI) on Tuesday that people disappear almost every night. Hamas itself posts video footage of new violence against Palestinian victims every few days, including “people being shot in the legs or hit with stone blocks in ostensible punishment for alleged crimes including stealing aid, using drugs and collaborating with Israel.”
“The situation is frightening. From the moment the ceasefire began, we started seeing random killings. It sows fear among Gaza residents, and sadly it’s still going on. There are gunmen who will kill you for alleged collaboration, or for reasons you don’t even know,” a nervous Gazan speaking under a pseudonym told TOI.
A rare public denunciation of the terror group was made on Saturday by the family of Hisham al-Saftawi, who was murdered in front of his children by Hamas gunmen in the small hours of the morning. Hamas “police” said they would investigate the incident, while Hamas media claimed al-Saftawi was a criminal.
Gaza residents have grown accustomed to squads of masked and heavily armed Hamas goons appearing at major intersections and pulling over cars. Official spokesmen for the group deny any links to these “militia” forces, but they are widely known to be Hamas enforcers, seeking to consolidate their grip on postwar Gaza through intimidation.
TOI found a few supporters who approved of Hamas’s actions, crediting the group with “securing” humanitarian aid, settling scores with “some families that did bad things to people,” and weeding out Israeli “collaborators.”
Even those who were more critical of Hamas saw no alternative to the group’s continued rule, given its massive inventory of weapons and demonstrated willingness to use them. Some saw little reason to support the smaller clans, gangs, and militias that have challenged Hamas’s power, especially since those groups tend to lose their battles with Hamas. The imbalance of power is likely to get worse, since Hamas is aggressively hunting down rival groups with significant arsenals.
Atlantic Council senior fellow Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who has relatives in Gaza, said it would take nothing less than a “biblical miracle” — or a very determined military intervention — to transform Gaza into anything better than a fiefdom for Hamas.
“You have a death cult that is engaged in a massive human sacrifice and is holding two million people hostage. We got 20 Israeli living hostages out. Wonderful. But now we have two million Palestinian hostages,” he said.
Representatives of the other Palestinian government, the Palestinian Authority (PA), sided with the clans, dismissed Hamas’s claim to have an Islamic religious mandate to rule Gaza, and denounced mass executions by Hamas as “un-national, unethical, and unlawful.”
“This campaign isn’t about restoring Hamas’s political control. It’s about restoring safety, making sure people can sleep in their homes without fear after two years of unimaginable war,” the Hamas Interior Ministry told The National on Tuesday.
A Hamas security official boasted that “specialized units” have been assembled to penetrate areas still under IDF control and “neutralize” the “collaborators” hiding there. Hamas “field courts” quickly sentence most accused collaborators to death.
Husni al-Mughni, head of the Gaza Supreme Council for Tribal Affairs, claimed most tribal leaders support the Hamas crackdown — provided “punishment” does not become “chaos.”
“Gaza’s people lived through hell during the war. They starved, they were besieged, and some of our own sons, collaborators and outlaws, made their suffering worse. Holding them accountable is both a religious and national duty,” he said.
“Those executed had committed heinous crimes, stealing aid lorries, blocking roads, spreading fear, collaborating with the occupation, killing innocents. But justice must not destroy the unity we are trying to rebuild,” he said.
Al-Mughni told The National that his tribal council has officially removed its protection from families accused of collaborating with Israel so that Hamas can wipe them out.
“There are not many of them. Removing them will purify society,” he said.
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