Hamas is Gaza’s oppressor, not its liberator

If the goal is truth, ignoring Hamas’s crimes against Gazans is not solidarity. It is betrayal.

By Yuval David, Middle East Forum

People often talk about Gaza through the lens of suffering: bombed-out families, hungry children, and grieving widows. Those images are powerful, but they tell only half the story.

What is missing is the truth that Hamas is not just fighting Israel; Hamas is brutalizing Gazans themselves.

This is not Israeli spin. It is on camera. Newly released videos from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) show Hamas fighters beating and shooting at civilians.

The footage, shared publicly by Israel’s Defense Ministry, strips away the lies Hamas hides behind.

COGAT head Gen. Ghassan Alian summed it up: “The shocking footage illustrates how Hamas oppresses the population, abuses civilians, and uses unrestrained violence against people in order to maintain its bloody rule.”

For years, Hamas has sold itself to the world as the “resistance.” But what these videos prove—and what Gazans know well—is that Hamas is not resistance but rather repression.

The people of Gaza live under a regime that silences dissent, steals aid, and rules through fear. To understand the humanitarian crisis, it is necessary to understand that Hamas is at war with its own people.

Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 after staging a coup against its coalition partner, Fatah, and imposed a theocratic dictatorship.

Hamas allowed no subsequent elections, strangled civil society, and shuttered independent media. The group silences opposition with torture, imprisonment, and death.

The recent COGAT footage is not the first evidence of this reign of terror.

In 2018 and 2019, the Israel Defense Forces released closed-caption television footage from Gaza showing Hamas operatives chaining, hanging, and torturing detainees. Some of these victims were political opponents; others were suspected of disloyalty.

Human rights organizations have documented the same pattern. Amnesty International has reported that Hamas security forces carry out “arbitrary arrests and torture” against critics.

Human Rights Watch accused Hamas of systematic abuse, including beatings with pipes and whips, stress positions, and electric shocks.

Today, however, diplomats, journalists, and self-described human rights advocates ignore this reality. True, Gazans occasionally speak out.

A December 2024 feature in The Sunday Times revealed the voices of those risking everything to tell the truth about Hamas.

One activist explained, “To them Gaza is nothing but a reality-TV show. … We’re also being dehumanized by those who claim to support us. … Hamas’s crown was drenched in Palestinian blood.”

But speaking comes at a cost. Activists who protest Hamas’s corruption risk their lives. In 2019, when thousands of Gazans took to the streets to protest poverty and mismanagement under the banner “We Want to Live,” Hamas responded with force.

Hamas’s subsequent beating, detention, and torture of protesters barely made headlines in the West.

This silence is part of the problem. International media paint Hamas as a combatant against Israel and portray Gazans as victims of war, but that narrative erases half the truth.

Gazans are also victims of their own governing rulers.

Meanwhile, Hamas steals food that should be feeding families and concrete to build tunnels. United Nations and nongovernmental organization reports show how Hamas diverts resources meant for civilians.

Hamas stealing aid and diverting supplies away from Gazans, only to use it for their own terrorist operations, has been ongoing since 2005, but international organizations ignore it.

When aid does reach Gaza, Hamas often controls distribution to reward loyalists and punish critics. This forces ordinary Gazans to remain dependent on Hamas while international donors look away.

Why do so many in the West ignore this reality? Why is the media quick to highlight Israeli airstrikes but slow to highlight Hamas repression of Palestinians?

Part of it is ideological convenience. For years, anti-Israel activists have framed the story as “oppressor versus oppressed.”

In that simplistic script, Israel is always the villain, and Palestinians are always the victims.

Admitting that Hamas itself is an oppressor complicates the narrative and undermines the propaganda that keeps global outrage focused on Israel.

If the goal is truth, ignoring Hamas’s crimes against Gazans is not solidarity. It is betrayal.

The world needs to change the way it talks about Gaza. Aid matters, but so does accountability. To care about Palestinians requires condemnation of a group that tortures them and uses them as human shields.

Governments must condition aid on transparency and civilian access. International organizations must report honestly on Hamas abuses or lose their credibility.

Journalists must amplify Gazan voices of dissent, not just repeat Hamas talking points. And policymakers must stop treating Hamas as a legitimate movement when it functions like a mafia.

This is not about defending Israel’s every policy, but it is necessary to acknowledge: Hamas is not Gaza’s liberator. It is Gaza’s jailer.

There can be no real solution in Gaza until the full story is told because peace cannot be built on a foundation of lies.