Gazan Civilians to Hamas: Stop Fighting Israel, Get Off Our Backs

What happened to the “pro-Palestinian” narrative?

Hamas, in 1st response to protests, claims they are against Israel, not itself. (The Times of Israel)

So, in what appears to be an intensifying phenomenon, Palestinians in Gaza are now demonstrating angrily against...Hamas (reports here and here).

“Pro-Palestinians” on US campuses are not marching in sympathy with the protesting Gazans. If anything, they’re suffering a bout of cognitive dissonance. What’s happening in Gaza now does not fit their narrative of demonic Israelis and innocent Palestinian victims.

In the real Gaza this week, thousands of Gazans are showing up to vent frustration at the ones more and more of them see as the culprit—Hamas. They’re demanding that it stop waging—futile—war on Israel and give up its power.

In Shejaiya, a neighborhood in Gaza City considered a Hamas stronghold, protesters are shouting, “For God’s sake—Hamas out!”

In Beit Lahiya, a town in northern Gaza, there are cries of “The people want the fall of Hamas!” and “Hamas out, out, Hamas is a terrorist!”

On Tuesday last week Israel launched a new offensive in Gaza, aimed at stopping Hamas’s rearmament and pressuring it to stop stonewalling on the issue of the Israeli hostages. Again Gazans hear the bombs exploding and the Israeli warnings to evacuate neighborhoods.

In a video in Hebrew and Arabic released on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz urged Gazans to step up the protests. Saying the IDF would soon launch a new round of attacks, he told Gazans they would have to

leave the combat zones for your protection.

The plans are ready and approved. Hamas is risking your life and will make you lose your homes and more and more land that [Israel will appropriate].

…Demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages. This is the only way to stop the war.

All this doesn’t mean the growing protests should be seen as something they’re not. Gazan civilians have not become pro-Israel or advocates of the two-state solution.

A Beit Lahiya resident named Abed Radwan said, “Our children have been killed. Our houses have been destroyed.” He was protesting, he asserted, “against the war, against Hamas, and the [Palestinian political] factions, against Israel and against the world’s silence.”

A Gazan named Ammar Hassan said Hamas was “the only party we can affect. Protests won’t stop the [Israeli] occupation, but they can affect Hamas.”

It’s a safe bet that if Hamas were winning the war and continuing to massacre Israelis, Gazans would be cheering them on with unflagging gusto.

But more and more of them realize that, by attacking a much more militarily powerful party, Hamas—notwithstanding its “glorious” achievements on October 7, 2023—was simply plunging Gaza into misery. They’ve had enough of it, and along with the Israeli military pressure and, reportedly, demands on Hamas by Egyptian mediators to return to the hostage negotiations, are adding fuel to Hamas’s quandary.

As for the radical Islamic and leftist “pro-Palestinians” at US universities and many other venues all over the Western world, don’t expect a peep of sympathy from them for the fed-up Gaza protesters or even a murmur of criticism of their hero—Hamas.