Gazans turn their fury on Hamas

Confirmation that Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, mass slaughter of Jews to torpedo a pending rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel is a timely reminder of the depravity of the terrorists and their Iranian paymasters. If Hamas is to be believed, almost 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the fateful day that launched the Gaza war. Many more have been injured. Gaza has been reduced to rubble. More than 1700 Israelis, including the 1200 killed on October 7, have died. Fifty-eight of the 250 hostages taken on the day remain in terrorist hands; 34 of those remaining are believed to be dead.

Those are just some of the consequences of what the Hamas documents – discovered in a tunnel beneath the enclave and seen by The Wall Street Journal – show was a decision that has turned Gaza into a death zone, with Gazans the main victims. Five days before October 7, according to minutes of a high-level meeting of the terrorists, Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar (since dispatched by Israeli forces) told fellow terrorists an “extraordinary act” was needed to derail “normalisation” talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Those talks were expected to lead to Saudi Arabia signing a peace deal with Israel and joining the Abraham Accords, a move that had the potential to transform peace prospects across the Middle East. The minutes quote Sinwar: “There is no doubt the Saudi-Zionist normalisation agreement is progressing significantly.” If a deal were done, he said, it would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path”. That would have spelt doom for the terrorists and Iran’s aim to dominate the region. Sinwar outlined plans “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause”. He was confident Hamas’s October 7 attack would be supported by other Iranian terrorist proxies. That was certainly true of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

But 20 months on, the tide may be turning slowly towards progress. In London, The Times reports a potential breakthrough in talks involving the Trump administration, about freeing the hostages, and Iran, negotiating with Washington over a possible nuclear deal. It remains to be seen if that achieves a desperately needed ceasefire in Gaza to alleviate the suffering of the enclave’s people. But Israel’s pouring in of thousands more troops for what is planned to be a final push to eliminate Hamas and the Jewish state’s easing restrictions on humanitarian supplies for Gaza are encouraging signs of movement aimed at achieving an end to the fighting.

The pressure building on Hamas and Tehran is also evident in renewed anti-Hamas demonstrations by Gazans tired of the death and devastation caused by the terrorists within the enclave, where Hamas continues to hide its bases beneath hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. That was evident last week when Israeli forces, seeking to assassinate current Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, tracked him down to a base beneath the European Hospital at Khan Younis in southern Gaza. He is believed to have died in the attack. The Wall Street Journal also has reported large crowds chanting “Hamas out!” – gathering at great potential risk to themselves – demanding an end to the war and that control of the enclave be ceded to Israel.

“Boisterous protests have been taking place where fear of Hamas has seemingly evaporated,” the Journal noted. “On social media, influencers – many of them Palestinians based in Egypt, Turkey, Europe and the US – are urging Gazans to rise against Hamas and are amplifying the protests globally.”

The accounts of how Yahya Sinwar and fellow Hamas leaders cynically embarked on a murderous onslaught aimed at thwarting what at the time looked like a promising rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel is likely to further inflame anti-Hamas passions. The message for Arab leaders and Gazans in the minutes of the Hamas leaders’ meeting before October 7, 2023, is that the Iran-backed terrorists cynically were determined to do whatever it took to thwart a peace deal, even if that was to the detriment of Saudi Arabia. The cost of that strategy has been immense, to Gazans and the entire region. Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia last week shows rapprochement remains a key in attempts to find a solution to Middle East conflict.