A demonstration against Hamas brought together thousands of Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip today, who for the second day in a row demanded that the Islamist movement give up power in the enclave and lay down its arms in the conflict with Israel.
In the city of Beit Lahia, where a similar protest took place on Tuesday, around three thousand people took to the streets today, shouting slogans such as "the people want the fall of Hamas", according to the AP news agency.
The same source added that in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, which has been hit hard by the fighting and Israeli attacks, dozens of men shouted "Out, out, out! Hamas, out!"
"Our children have been killed. Our homes have been destroyed", said Abed Radwan in Beit Lahia, demonstrating "against the war, against Hamas and the (Palestinian political) factions, against Israel and against the silence of the world".
Ammar Hassan, who took part in a demonstration on Tuesday, told the AP by phone that it started as an anti-war protest with a few dozen people but grew to more than 2,000, with people chanting against Hamas.
“The protests will not stop the (Israeli) occupation, but they can affect Hamas,” he said.
The militant group has violently cracked down on previous protests, but this time, there was no direct intervention.
A senior Hamas official, Bassem Naim, wrote in a Facebook post that people had a right to protest but that their focus should be on the “criminal aggressor,” Israel.
A similar protest took place on Tuesday in the heavily damaged Jabalia area, according to witnesses.
A protester in Jabalia, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said he joined because “everyone has failed” the Palestinians, including Israel, Hamas, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and Arab mediators.
Participants said there were no Hamas security forces at the protest, but there was fighting between supporters and opponents of the group.
Messages of unknown origin calling for protests in several locations across the Gaza Strip have been circulating repeatedly since early this week.
Israel has frequently challenged Palestinians in Gaza to rise up against the Islamist movement that seized power in the territory in 2007, ousting the rival Fatah movement and no longer holding elections.
The protest comes a week after the Israeli military broke a cease-fire in place since Jan. 19, resuming shelling and military incursions into Gaza, killing nearly 800 people.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has called on Palestinians to join the protests.
"They must also demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages. This is the only way to stop the war," he said.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which left more than 1,200 people dead in a few hours, most of them civilians.
The death toll in the Gaza Strip since the war began in October 2023 surpassed 50,000 over the weekend, following the latest Israeli bombings in the Palestinian enclave, according to figures provided by local authorities, which are controlled by Hamas.
The Islamist group threatened today that Israeli hostages still held in Gaza could be killed if Israel tries to free them by force or if Tel Aviv's attacks on the Palestinian territory continue.
The movement assured, in a statement, that it is doing "everything possible to keep the prisoners alive", accusing Israel of "putting [the hostages'] lives in danger" with its bombings.
"Every time the [Israeli] occupation tries to rescue the prisoners by force, it ends up taking them back in coffins", added Hamas.
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