Hamas has carried out ritual executions within Gaza to consolidate power after the Israeli withdrawal
Hamas militants are reestablishing bases inside hospitals and schools, using civilian infrastructure to interrogate Gazans the terror group accuses of collaborating with Israel, according to Palestinian media reports.
“Hamas’s internal security forces have begun summoning opponents from schools, tents, and hospitals controlled by Hamas members for interrogation,” the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) official Arabic mouthpiece, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, reported over the weekend.
Hamas is notorious for its use of U.N.-run schools and hospitals as military outposts and arms storage depots, a practice meant to maximize civilian casualties and engender international outrage against Israel. While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) neutralized many of these locations during its two-year war in Gaza, the recently inked ceasefire has afforded Hamas an opportunity to reassert control.
“Hamas is working to restore its pre-war status, and its reoccupation of hospitals and other civilian sites fit that pattern,” Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon. “The IDF is unlikely to move against Hamas since Israel’s leadership is determined to avoid actions that could unravel the ceasefire.”
As the Israeli research group Palestinian Media Watch wrote on Monday alongside its translation of the Arabic-language reports, “Hamas is taking advantage of Israel’s constraints to rebuild its terror infrastructures and rule across the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas has conducted a series of bloody raids on opposition groups and Gazan factions that oppose its militant rule, aiming to send a warning message to the millions of civilians still living in the coastal territory. The operations fly in the face of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which requires Hamas to disarm.
After a spate of Hamas-led attacks on Israeli troops over the weekend, Trump warned the terror group is digging its own grave by refusing to disarm.
“This is a very violent group of people, and they got very rambunctious, and they did things that they shouldn’t be doing,” Trump said on Monday. “And if they keep doing it, then we’re going to go in and straighten it out, and it’ll happen very quickly and pretty violently. Unfortunately, we are going to eradicate Hamas.”
Hamas is also trying to retake control of the lucrative humanitarian aid channels in Gaza, reportedly summoning “employees in the international development and aid agencies in order to obtain information about the amounts [of aid] and distribution methods,” the PA’s outlet reported.
The terror group has historically filled its coffers with revenue from Gaza’s humanitarian aid networks. In a bid to shore up its finances during the ceasefire, Hamas “imposed levies and tariffs on the aid and established a department for those purposes,” according to Palestinian media.
Shortly after the ceasefire went into effect, Hamas militants emerged from their hiding spots deep beneath Gaza and began executing civilians in the streets, the Free Beacon reported last week. Masked Hamas gunmen wearing the terror group’s signature green headband were seen lining up bound men in the streets and executing them before cheering mobs.
Hamas foot soldiers also executed at least 25 men affiliated with the Doghmush clan in Gaza City, reportedly using ambulances to infiltrate the family’s compound and round up its members. More recent unverified videos circulating online purport to show Hamas members violently assaulting Palestinians who publicly celebrated the peace deal with Israel.
For now, there is little the Israeli military can do to stop Hamas from rebuilding its terror infrastructure, Truzman told the Free Beacon.
“Most of Hamas’s operations appear confined to areas under its control, from which the IDF has already withdrawn in accordance with the terms in the ceasefire deal,” he said. “Although reports of Hamas using hospitals and cracking down on Palestinians, Israeli intervention is improbable unless it comes with explicit U.S. backing.”
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