Eight men executed on a busy Gaza City street at dusk. More than two dozen people dead in a gun battle that sprayed bullets across a crowded residential area. Soldiers marching into a gang-controlled neighborhood armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Just days after a preliminary peace agreement that brought a halt to Israeli attacks on Hamas, the group is back on Gaza’s streets. And after two years underground, its message to rival clans and militias is clear: We are still in charge.
The consequences of this scorched-earth campaign remain to be seen. If Hamas succeeds in projecting itself as the only viable authority in Gaza, experts argue that could give the group significant leverage in future ceasefire negotiations. That in turn might scuttle international plans to cut it out of plans for Gaza’s future governance. On the other hand, Hamas’ ironfisted crackdowns could also undermine the ceasefire from within.
Why We Wrote This
Violent confrontations this week between Hamas and rival armed groups in Gaza may complicate the peace process. But they have also brought a long-overdue sense of security to many Palestinians there.
Meanwhile, in a ransacked Gaza, the group’s campaigns have been met with cautious relief, and tempered by worry.
“I’m not a supporter of Hamas, but I support the imposition of order,” explains Gaza resident Tamer al-Abadlah. ”When there is clear authority, we feel reassured.”
For others, however, Hamas’ killings are a dangerous “distortion of the image of the Palestinian struggle,” says Gazan writer and political analyst Ahed Farwana. In an interview with Voice of Palestine radio, he argued that such extrajudicial killings “deepen the division and increase the suffering of the people of the Gaza Strip, who have been exhausted by aggression and destruction.”
“Harm from within”
In Gaza, two brutal years of war have not only leveled buildings, but also shattered the institutions of law and order that once kept crime in check here. As Hamas-led governance structures crumpled and most of the strip’s police force was driven into hiding by Israeli attacks, gangs surged into the void.
The groups are a patchwork of powerful families, neighborhood committees, and other armed social networks that have long tussled for power in Gaza. But during the war, they ran unchecked, creating a reign of terror for residents.
“My own house was stripped – water generator, solar panels, doors, clothes, kitchenware – everything gone,” Mr. al-Abadlah says. “It hurt in a different way than the Israeli strikes; this was harm from within.”
The Israeli government also provided arms, aid, and drone intelligence to some of Gaza’s gangs, arguing it would weaken Hamas and bring an end to the war more quickly. “What’s wrong with that? It’s a good thing,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video posted to social media earlier this year.
Among the Israeli-backed groups was the powerful Abu Shabab militia, which became infamous for looting aid trucks in the midst of famine, and then reselling their contents to starving Palestinians at extortionate prices.
“Safety … is relative”
Since the ceasefire, Hamas has not gone after Abu Shabab, which some observers believe is a reflection of the group’s strength. Instead, it has focused its violence on groups connected to two powerful central Gazan families, the Doghmushes and the Mujaidas.
On Monday, Hamas soldiers confronted Doghmush members in the Jordanian hospital in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. A massive shootout ensued, in which at least 25 Doghmush and six Hamas fighters died. Journalist Saleh al-Jafarawi, there covering the clash, was also killed.
The same evening, Hamas fighters guided eight blindfolded men – at least some of them members of Doghmush – to a busy street in the same neighborhood. There, they shot them in the head and left their bodies in the dirt.
Onlookers captured the executions on phone cameras, and many in Gaza were heartbroken by what they saw.
“The [Hamas] police presence is reassuring, but we don’t want to see executions in the streets,” says Manar Abu Arqoub, a former school principal and a father of 11.
Still, he says, the gangs are not the root of the problem. “Safety today is relative,” he says. “If sufficient aid reached 2 million people, crime rates would decrease.”
For her part, journalist Safinaz Al-Louh says she will only truly feel safe when Israeli forces have completely withdrawn from Gaza.
“There is no real security as long as the occupation forces are present,” she says.
