Starved and under attack, Gaza's civilians are caught between Israel and Hamas
Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza Eighteen months into the war in Gaza, with the death toll from Israeli attacks mounting steadily, food, medicines and other essentials running low, and expanded ground operations forcing the population out of ever-larger areas, signs are emerging that society is near breaking point. Any hope of relief rests on Israel and the militant group Hamas agreeing to terms for another ceasefire, but neither side appears willing to give ground on their demands. More than 1,390 people have been killed since Israel ended two months of ceasefire with intense bombardment on March 18. More than three times that number have also been injured, Gaza health authorities said on Monday, raising the Palestinian death toll from the war to more than 50,750, with more than 115,450 injured. Nine out of 10 Gazans are displaced and effectively homeless, and no aid has entered the territory since Israel imposed a blockade on March 2. Desperation has reached new heights. In the past two weeks there have been rare protests against Hamas, despite the group being known to crack down harshly on any signs of opposition since it gained control of the enclave in 2007. The family of one young protester, Uday Al Ruba'i, accused Hamas forces of kidnapping him on March 28 and torturing him after he took part in a protest against the group in Gaza city. "They want to shoot me … some masked men came after my brother. They could be Al Qassam [Brigades], God knows. And I've been on the run since the morning," Mr Al Ruba'i, 22, said in a video message posted online, referring to the armed wing of Hamas. Soon after, his brother Hussein posted a video statement while standing next to Mr Al Ruba'i's grave, vowing that the family would not hold any mourning ceremonies without exacting retribution. "They betrayed him, and killed him," he said. The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) condemned the "extrajudicial killing" and highlighted it as a symptom of a wider issue. "The ICHR views this crime as part of the deteriorating security chaos, the proliferation of weapons, and the absence of the rule of law in Gaza, posing a serious threat to public rights and freedoms," it said in a statement. Days later a family in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza, said they had killed a Hamas police officer who opened fire during a stampede outside a flour storage site, killing one of their members. Hamas said its officer was killed by "criminals" and asserted that "Israel's attempts to break the internal front and spread chaos will not succeed". "We will not allow any party to spread chaos in Gaza Strip or take the law into their hands," the group said in a statement. Gazan political analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, accused Israel of being the root cause of the deterioration in security. "This is exactly why Israel has been reaching out to families and clans in Gaza and pitting them against each other; it's why they've been arming criminals and gangs, and recruiting collaborators and spies at gunpoint; to fully collapse Gaza as a society," he wrote on X. Another Gazan analyst, Khalil Al Sayegh, said people saw putting pressure on Hamas to accept the truce terms demanded by Israel with the backing of the US – which helped to mediate the initial truce alongside Egypt and Qatar – as the only way to end their suffering. "People are exhausted of the war and think and hope that if Hamas make a huge compromise and leave the government and dismantle, it'll end the genocide and end the unbearable pain they've been going through the past 18 years with war after war," Mr Al Sayegh told The National. However, Gazans remain clear about which party is to blame for the misery, he said. "No one in Gaza is under the illusion that Israel is a friend, and that they're only rising against Hamas. They know that Israel is the enemy and is using Hamas to kill them and inflict suffering on them." Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, said an uprising against Hamas could be a way to avoid a full Israeli occupation of Gaza. "Occupation is the more probable scenario, unless the protesters reach 100,000 which would be a tipping point to convince Hamas to accept the Witkoff proposal," he said, referring to the truce terms endorsed by Steve Witkoff, the US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy. He said Israel's increased military pressure was to force Hamas to not only free the remaining hostages it seized during the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war, but to also lay down its arms and for its leaders to leave Gaza. However, he sees "no indication" that Hamas would agree to this.
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