HOW HAMAS QUICKLY APPROPRIATED GAZA’S PEACEFUL PROTESTS
Anger at Israeli killings of Palestinians distracts from failure of the enclave’s leadership to improve their conditions, writes Florian Neuhof in Gaza City
The kites fluttered above plumes of black smoke from tyres burning at the fence that separates Gaza from Israeli territory. As Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live rounds at the Palestinians massed near the barbed-wire border, groups of young men stood back behind earthen mounds, adeptly pulling at long lines to manoeuvre the kites and their tails of burning cloth over the parched Israeli farms beyond the fence.
Farther back, others were also pulling strings.
Only a short walk from the fence, the protest organisers worked the crowd from a podium shielded from the scorching sun by a huge netted roof.
The National Committee for the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege has since March 30 been calling on Gazans to commemorate the expulsion of Palestinians from their land in 1948.
Last Friday, that theme changed to protesting against the capture of Jerusalem by Israeli troops in the 1967 war.
The drumbeat of those protests had begun well before the crowds gathered at five spots along the separation fence. From mid-morning, loudspeakers were blasting recorded messages from lorries driving through Gaza city.
“Now it’s time to liberate Jerusalem and bring back its beauty and glory,” a metallic voice echoed through streets. “The National Committee for the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege is asking you to take part in these protests today.”
Most of those who come to the fence had not been born when the Palestinians were expelled or when the Israelis captured Jerusalem. They are instead motivated by the appalling situation in the narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean coast.
Since Hamas was elected in 2006, Israel and Egypt have enforced a blockade on Gaza that has all but broken the local economy.
The Israeli military has repeatedly clashed with Hamas, which it calls a terrorist organisation, and the subsequent destruction has added to the hardship endured by Gazans.
The blockade also severely restricts movement out of Gaza, with the territory commonly described as an open-air prison.
“We have been living under a siege for 12 years,” said Mohammed Alouh, who works in the administration of Shafeay Mosque in the Askula neighbourhood of Gaza City.
“We’ve urged the world community to end the siege but it hasn’t happened, so we are going to the fence to break it ourselves.”
The mosque’s imam had encouraged worshippers to join the protests at the end of midday prayers, Mr Alouh said.
Next to the mosque, a bus stood ready to take those who heeded the imam’s call.
The protests have become part of the Friday routine in Gaza. The weekly gatherings have galvanised residents and proven a useful distraction to Gaza’s increasingly unpopular rulers.
Hamas, which has prevented elections since 2006, has a tight grip on the enclave. But its inability to improve daily life has begun to undermine its position, experts say.
“There is political pressure building on Hamas,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al Azhar University in Gaza.
“Two thirds of the people in Gaza consider Hamas to be a major cause of their problems.”
Unemployment in Gaza is at 44 per cent, says the World Bank, and more than 60 per cent of those under 30 are unable to find work.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics says one third of Gaza residents live below the poverty line. Dilapidated infrastructure provides neither enough clean water nor more than four hours of electricity a day.
Hamas moved quickly to take control of the organising committee.
“The protests were started by independent activists,” Mr Abusada said. “Hamas jumped in and started leading the protests.”
The Great March of Return protests are the brainchild of Ahmed Abu Artema, 33, a journalist and writer whose poems are popular on social media. The political parties in Gaza, chief among them Hamas, then muscled in on the organising committee.
“We can’t do anything about this, the political factions control everything in Gaza,” said Artema, who admitted that he is less involved in the protests than in the beginning.
“We can’t ignore them and we can’t deny that they are part of this.”
Hamas also uses its sway over Gaza’s mosques to its advantage and Shafeay mosque is not the only one where the call to prayer is followed by the call to protest.
“In Gaza most of the imams are in the pay of Hamas,” Mr Abusada said.
Hamas’s involvement in the protests has not gone unnoticed by the Israelis, who have tried to dissuade Gazans from demonstrating by playing on discontent with the group.
Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on Gaza on Thursday, urging residents to refrain from taking part in demonstrations at the fence.
“It would be good for you not to allow Hamas to take you hostage to add to their political credit,” the flyer reads.
The Israelis are losing the propaganda war.
“We are also angry at Hamas but we can’t protest against them,” said Naeem Hamada, whose son Mohammed died on June 2 after being shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper during the May 14 protests. The priority must remain protesting against the Israeli occupation, he said.
Mr Hamada’s son, 30, was heavily in debt and unemployed after a failed business venture, his father said. Instead of turning on Hamas, he went to the fence.
His father said his depression caused him to disregard the danger and he was shot. He died of his wounds after being released early from a hospital overwhelmed with casualties.
Organisers have vowed to continue the protests.
“Hamas has succeeded by diverting the internal pressure towards the Israeli occupation,” Mr Abusada said.
We are also angry at Hamas but we can’t protest against them. The priority is protesting against the Israelis NAEEM HAMADA Father of a victim of Israeli snipers