Israel must not ignore the anti-Hamas protests in Gaza

Japan Times

31-03-2025

Typically, a small anti-war demonstration would not be front-page news unless it happened somewhere like Moscow, where few dare openly to oppose the Kremlin's ongoing aggression against Ukraine.
But in war-torn Gaza, the stakes would be even higher. Even before the current conflict, Hamas responded to any criticism of its misrule with brutal repression and torture. Yet on March 25, hundreds of people took to the streets in Beit Lahiya (northern Gaza) to protest not only against the war, but against Hamas. With chants of 'stop war,' 'Hamas out,' 'Hamas terrorists,' the demonstrators sent exactly the right message: For the war to end, Hamas — which started it — must be removed from power.
Nor were the Beit Lahiya protesters alone. As news and videos of this extraordinary event spread on social media, similar spontaneous demonstrations erupted elsewhere in Gaza, first in Jabalia and Khan Yunis, and then in Shejaiya, one of the enclave's largest communities. While most of the protesters refused to identify themselves by name to reporters, they nonetheless showed their faces.
On Wednesday, over 3,000 people demonstrated again in Beit Lahiya. Anti-Hamas slogans were more visible, but protesters stressed that their main objective is for the war to end. 'We can't stop Israel from killing us, but we can press Hamas to give concessions,' said Mohammed Abu Saker, a father of three from the nearby town of Beit Hanoun. Even Hamas-controlled media covered the event, though only after editing out statements attacking the Islamists' rule.
Though still relatively small in scale, the demonstrations clearly indicate a shift in opinion. After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas took power the following year in the only free elections the Palestinians had ever had. Fatah, the secular nationalist party with majority support in the West Bank, had been tainted by corruption, so more Gazans voted for Hamas, which promised not terrorism, but clean government, even running under the name 'Change and Reform.'
But after winning the election, Hamas violently expelled Fatah from Gaza — 345 people were killed in the process — and started firing rockets at Israel. This caused a series of wars, culminating in the current one — by far the most violent yet. Neither Gaza nor the West Bank has held an election in 20 years and Hamas's rule has proved no less corrupt than Fatah's (municipal elections have been held in the West Bank, but Hamas has boycotted all of them).
Meanwhile, Israeli governments — led mainly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have regarded Hamas's totalitarian rule in Gaza as advantageous. With terrorists in power in Gaza and corrupt incompetents in Ramallah (the seat of the Palestinian Authority), the argument goes, Israel has had no legitimate counterparty with which to negotiate. Then came Oct. 7, 2023. The scale and viciousness of the slaughter, which visibly had broad support in Gaza, seemed to prove Netanyahu's point. Even the country's moderate president, Isaac Herzog, said — in the shock of the immediate aftermath of the slaughter — that 'there is an entire nation out there that is responsible.'
In a November 2023 poll conducted by the respected Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 72% of Palestinians thought Hamas was 'correct' to launch the Oct. 7 attack, while over 90% refused to believe that civilians were killed on that day. Yet it is worth noting that support was much higher in the West Bank (82%) than in Gaza (57%), which was already enduring Israel's counterattack. Similarly, overall support for Hamas had been consistently higher in the West Bank, where it is the opposition, than in Gaza, which has suffered under its rule.
Since then, however, support for the attack and for Hamas has been systematically declining, though the difference between West Bank and Gazan attitudes remains. Last fall, only 39% of Gazans supported the attack and in January 2025 only around 20% supported Hamas rule.
This disenchantment almost certainly reflects the high cost of the war — there have been more than 50,000 fatalities (civilian and combatant) in Gaza, according to the unverifiable data provided by Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health — rather than a revaluation of attitudes toward terrorism. Still, the recent demonstrations indicate that a segment of Palestinian opinion in Gaza wants the war over and Hamas out. That means it shares Israel's own stated goals.
Yet Netanyahu's government, embroiled in an internal political crisis of its own making, has failed to respond to the Gaza protests. Apart from a cursory remark by the defense minister, Israel Katz, there has been radio silence. With Israel having broken the ceasefire and reignited the war, Netanyahu's claim to want peace rings increasingly hollow.
True, the Gaza protesters have not spoken out explicitly against the continuing detention of 59 Israeli hostages — only 24 of whom are believed to remain alive. But this issue, understandably, might not seem too important to them, just as the Gazans' fate is not a high priority for the Israeli anti-government protesters who want to free the hostages.
What matters is that some Gazans and some Israelis have common ground — even if their governments do not share their goals. That is unprecedented. The demonstrators in Beit Lahiya and Tel Aviv cannot end the war. But they do represent the only possible path to a lasting peace.
Konstanty Gebert is a Polish journalist, former anti-communist activist, and the author of 14 books on Polish, Jewish and international affairs.© Project Syndicate, 2025