Palestinian civilians are beginning to stand up to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, refusing to be “human shields” for the terror organization — a sign that the group may be losing its sway over the population as the war nears the year mark.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that civilians are rejecting their assigned role in Hamas’s battle plan — either to shield terrorists or to cause public relations damage to Israel in the event that it does attack Hamas in those areas.
The Times noted:
Residents, already forced to evacuate their homes because of Israel’s intense bombardment, wanted to avoid becoming a target for Israeli forces hunting down Hamas militants.
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It is hard to know how widespread the phenomenon is, and whether the armed militia are from Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other armed gangs, but these residents’ experiences suggest that at least some evacuees have blocked armed militias from moving into these [school] shelters.
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The residents’ testimonies also suggested that Hamas’s grip on the enclave may be weakened by the war and that ad hoc community groups are starting to operate outside the organization’s control, at least on a small scale.
There has also been evidence on social media of local Palestinians standing up to Hamas terrorists in Gaza:
On Monday, Israel attacked Hamas commanders hiding in a humanitarian enclave. Hamas claimed that at least 40 and as many as 65 people had been killed, before Israel pushed back and Hamas revised the number down to 19.
The initial Hamas figure had been reported uncritically by Al Jazeera, and repeated by other outlets, sometimes with the caveat that the death figures came from Hamas-controlled government agencies within the Gaza Strip.
Last month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported finding documents in Gaza that suggested that Hamas had been gaming public opinion polls to exaggerate its level of support among the civilian population of the territory.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.