‘God is not OK with this’: Gaza protester’s family vow to fight on after brutal execution

Uday al-Rubay’s family have described the excruciating death of the young anti-Hamas protester, but despite fearing for their own lives, his friends and cousins continue to speak out against the terror group.

Uday al-Rubay was tortured and killed after denouncing Hamas in Gaza.

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Hamas tortured and executed a young Palestinian who took part in protests against the terror group hours after he publicly denounced them in an astonishing act of bravery, his family have revealed.

Uday al-Rubay became the face of Hamas’s brutal crackdown after the terror group singled out a number of protesters to beat and publicly kill last week.

For three consecutive days the previous week, thousands had demonstrated throughout Gaza, demanding that Hamas leave the Strip, which has been all but destroyed in the 17-month war with Israel. For most of the protests Hamas, incredibly, remained in the background. Attempts to quell the rallies failed, with at least one militant beaten by the furious young men shouting their rage after months of terror, starvation and death.

Then the crackdown began, with at least six of the protesters executed and others shot and left in public squares.

The Australian and other world media reported that Uday, 22, was tortured before he was dumped, dying, on his family’s doorstep.

But in their first interview, his family have described a far more brutal and excruciating death.

Speaking to the US-based news site The Free Press, Uday’s family said their son was abducted a day after recording a video in which he accused Hamas of “attacking us”, and hours after courageously standing up in a coffee shop to denounce the group – in a move that started one of the protests.

The family said about 30 men from Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, stormed his home and dragged him away before torturing him to death.

“When they were done – after they had broken his fingers, stabbed him repeatedly, and smashed his head with a rifle butt – they dropped his body off a rooftop. A note was pinned to his clothes: ‘This is the price for all who criticise Hamas’,” The Free Press reported.

Uday’s mother, who found the body, told the news site: “They caught him, tortured him, slashed his arms with knives, stabbed him with screwdrivers.

“They stabbed him 170 times. His whole body was stabbed and pierced, and the blood was pouring out. Nothing was left unharmed.”

She added: “I saw him in the coffin, I wanted to die. God is not OK with this.”

The family explained that Uday had spoken out against Hamas before, making an enemy of the terror group. Last year, they arrested and tortured him, claiming he had stolen cash and gold, despite his denials.

“They wanted to shoot him in both legs, but he escaped through the window and came home,” his father said.

The group also took his phone and money and last week, and as the protests erupted, Uday went to a Hamas police station and, after being told there were no charges against him, demanded the return of the phone and cash.

Instead, he was arrested and his family, as well as mourning him, are now in fear of their own lives.

However, his life and his courage are symbolic of Palestinians in Gaza who have long wanted Hamas out of the Strip but have been forced into silence by the savage tactics of the terror group.

The cruelty of Mohammed Sinwar, the group’s military leader in Gaza, is so renowned that Palestinians say they dare not even look at him in the street for fear he will shoot them dead.

Like many of his peers, Uday, one of 12 children, finished high school but didn’t see the point of pursuing an education in an enclave where there are few jobs. Instead, like his friends and siblings, he planned to escape the Strip. His brother Lu’ay had managed to move to Belgium, and Uday planned to follow him “once the war ends”, his mother told The Free Press.

“Every young Gazan man besieged in the Gaza Strip dreams of leaving safely with all his family members,” Uday’s cousin told the news site. “We want to live life like other people do. We want education, a future, and jobs. We want a dignified life.”

It was that desperation for a new life, a normal life free of the all-powerful Hamas, that drove young men to fill Gaza’s streets last week.

Then the executions began, and the protesters are again silent, many in hiding.

Uday’s friends and family, including his brothers, are being threatened now, while some protest leaders say their names have been put on a death list.

Uday’s mother is terrified that more of her sons will die. “Are we going to lose all our children?” she asked.

But despite Uday’s awful death – and that of at least five other protesters – his friends insist the rebellion won’t die. One of Uday’s cousins told The Free Press: “People have started to speak out because of the deaths.

“One person is sitting, and suddenly there is a bombing that kills his son, father, mother, or even himself. So he says to himself: ‘Do I die from the occupation and say nothing, or do I die while saying the truth?’ The people are fed up.”