As the Hamas-led offensive against Israel continued on October 7, many Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate what they viewed as a prison break and a sudden humiliation for the occupier.
But it was only a temporary boost, as Hamas’s popularity among Gazans has been low for some time. As Israel’s offensive has caused widespread destruction and tens of thousands of deaths, the group and its leaders remain unpopular in the Gaza Strip. More and more Gazans are willing to stand up against Hamas, even at the risk of retaliation.
In interviews with nearly a dozen Gaza residents in recent months, many said they held Hamas responsible for starting the war and bringing death and destruction to them, even though they placed the blame first on Israel.
Raed al-Kelani, a 47-year-old Gazan, said Hamas always acts in its own interests.
“This war started on Oct. 7, and Hamas wants to end it on its own terms,” said Mr. Krani, who served as a civil servant in the former Palestinian Authority government in Gaza, which was run by a rival faction of Hamas before it seized control of Gaza in 2007.
“But time is running out and there is no hope of ending this,” he added. Mr. Krani now cooks for displaced Gazans and distributes food aid in shelters. “Hamas is still seeking its own power,” he said. “Hamas does not know how to come down from the tree it has climbed.”
Some Gazans interviewed by The New York Times said Hamas knew it would start a devastating war with Israel with heavy civilian casualties, but it did not provide any food, water or shelter to help people survive. Hamas leaders said they wanted to start a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts to revive the Palestinian cause and knew Israel would react strongly.
Throughout the war, signs of dissent emerged, sometimes even as Gazans mourned loved ones killed in Israeli attacks. Others waited until they left Gaza to denounce Hamas — and even then, sometimes reluctantly, for fear that the group would survive the war and continue to rule Gaza.
In March, prominent Gaza photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who caused a brief social media storm by indirectly criticizing Hamas after leaving the Strip, was one of the few young local journalists to receive international attention. protrude In the early days of the war, death and destruction were documented on social media.
“If the death and starvation of their fellow citizens makes no difference to them,” he wrote In an apparent allusion to Hamas, the statement said, “They don’t need to change anything about us. All those who sell our blood, burn our hearts and homes, and destroy our lives are cursed.”
Some Palestinians attacked him for those comments, and Mr. Azaissa felt the need to defend himself publicly. But many inside Gaza saw him as expressing a sentiment that had been growing during the war.
Even before the war began, it was difficult to understand public opinion in Gaza. For one thing, Hamas, which has long controlled the territory, has perpetuated a culture of fear through its oppressive military system. Governance and retaliate against those who criticize it.
Voting is now more difficult, with most of the 2.2 million Gazans displaced multiple times by war, frequent communications blackouts and constant Israeli military offensives.
Yet some recent surveys have reflected low or mixed support for Hamas and its leaders in Gaza. In some cases, the conflicting results highlight the complexity of surveying mobile populations in the fog of war.
In March this year, Polls A survey by the West Bank Institute for Social and Economic Progress asked Gazans what they thought of Hamas leaders. About three-quarters of respondents said The same percentage opposes the group’s Gaza-based leader, Yahya Sinwar, and the same percentage opposes its exiled political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
“When you realize that in six or seven months Gaza is completely destroyed, your life as a Gazan is completely destroyed, that’s why people no longer support Sinwar or Haniya,” said Obada Shtaya, a Palestinian and founder of the Institute for Social and Economic Progress.
Other polls paint a more mixed picture. polling Research conducted in Gaza by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and released last week showed slightly higher support for Hamas leaders in Gaza and that the percentage of Gaza residents who were satisfied with the Hamas leadership had increased since December.
But the survey also showed that support for Hamas’ continued rule in the region has fallen slightly over the past three months.
Hamas spokesman Bassem Naim said support for Hamas among Gazans is no less than 50 percent, including Hamas members in Gaza (who he said numbered more than 100,000) and their families.
“Does anyone in Gaza blame Hamas? Of course,” he told The Times. “We are not saying that 100 percent of Gaza residents are Hamas supporters or are happy about what is happening,” he added.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “it’s natural in society that some people support it and some people oppose it. We welcome that stance.”
The New York Times interviewed nearly a dozen Gazans who are concerned about Hamas, some of whom said the war has lasted longer than any previous conflict between Israel and Gaza’s Palestinian armed factions in part because Hamas is seeking not only to survive but also to retain power. If that is true, there is no guarantee that a future war with Israel will subject Gazans to the same suffering again.
Hamas said it would not agree to any ceasefire with Israel that was only a temporary truce, fearing that the war would resume after the Israeli hostages were released. The group said it wanted a permanent ceasefire.
Mr. Naim said that if Hamas’s low approval ratings were due to the war, then Palestinians should be allowed to choose their representatives through elections. But for decades, Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have had little opportunity to make their voices heard in democratic elections.
The two regions are geographically separated, with Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip for more than a decade while the more moderate Palestinian Authority governs parts of the West Bank.
Fatah, a rival party of Hamas, lost legislative elections to Hamas in 2006. The following year, Hamas fighters drove Fatah forces out of Gaza and forcibly seized control of the territory. Political divisions between Hamas and Fatah have largely hampered elections since then.
Palestine 2021 parliament Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas expressed concern that the Israeli government might impose restrictions on the elections, and the elections were postponed indefinitely. More suggestions Abbas may have delayed the move at the time because he was worried about Fatah’s loss of power.
Mr Naim has accused Israel and the United States of disrupting past Palestinian elections.
One Gaza resident who fled to Egypt with her family in recent months said she often hears friends and family say they don’t want the war to end until Hamas is defeated in Gaza. She said Hamas puts its own goals above the well-being of the Palestinians it claims to defend and represent.
“They should have surrendered long ago and saved us from all this suffering,” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation if her criticism became public.
Even for Palestinians who have resented Hamas’s iron-fisted rule over Gaza for more than a decade, the events of October 7 felt, at least initially, like a battle to liberate themselves from Israeli occupation. Most of Gaza’s population are either refugees or descendants of refugees who were expelled or forced from their homes during the war of statehood and fled what is now Israel. They have never been allowed to return.
A 26-year-old Gazan lawyer who asked not to be named said most Gazans supported this “form of resistance” when Hamas attacked Israel.
“What we don’t support is that they continue this war because they haven’t achieved any of the goals they set out to achieve,” the lawyer said. “That’s not resistance. That’s madness.”
Hamas’s stated targets have largely addressed the broad aspirations of Palestinians beyond Gaza’s borders. Some residents of the region have long argued that with each new round of war between Hamas and Israel, the group seeks to increase its global influence and advocate for the broader Palestinian cause at the expense of ordinary Gazans.
One of Hamas’s goals is to free Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, some from Gaza and others from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It also wants to prevent Israel from Strengthening control Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City — one of Islam’s holiest sites — and blocking Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Gazans say the more Hamas pushes for those goals instead of ending the war quickly, the more they feel other Palestinians are winning their freedom at their expense.
“I don’t want to sacrifice my life, my home and my house for anyone,” Ameen Abed, a resident of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, said as one prisoner was released.
“Who are you to impose this life on me? Because someone’s sentence is up in four months, I’m going to lose my home, and for what?” he said. “What’s in it for me?”
He said that while Hamas and Israeli hostages were hiding in underground tunnels, Gazans were above ground, unprotected, with Israeli and American bombs dropping on their heads every day, a frequent complaint of Hamas critics in Gaza.
“The anger against Hamas is out of control. This is putting the Palestinian people in a difficult position,” he said.
