JERUSALEM, Israel – Violent crackdowns, arbitrary arrests, trumped-up police charges, imprisonments, and even live ammunition to deter innocent women, children, and people with disabilities from demanding basic rights like electricity are just some of the harrowing testimonies from the Gaza Strip caught in a video clip series recently released by the US-based Center for Peace Communications.
The “Whispered In Gaza” series, which uses animation and voice-altering technology to protect the identities of the speakers, offers a rare, unfiltered look at life in the poverty-stricken and besieged Palestinian enclave. But the anger and fears expressed by those who bravely tell their stories are not directed at their neighbor, Israel. Rather, their criticisms and despair are aimed at their autocratic rulers: Hamas.
“Your own thoughts are taken away from you when you walk down the street, the walls are covered with pictures, slogans and stories of the Hamas leadership and you feel like you’re in a war zone. Is it a city or a military barracks??” asks a man, whom the video calls “Iyad”.
“Gaza is a city. Yet they have penetrated it down to the walls, the billboards, even the smell,” he continues. “The city has taken on an atmosphere of backwardness, inhumanity, militarism. At any moment it could be hit, hit by rocket attacks, response, repeat. We are conditioned to that.”
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Palestinian members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, attend a rally January 31, 2016 in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
In another of the clips, “Ahmed” recounts how the power company, accompanied by Hamas-controlled police, arrived to cut off the supply in his neighborhood. Those who tried to stop them, including Ahmed’s cousin, a boy with Down syndrome, were beaten and shot with live ammunition. When Ahmed decided to document his injuries and uploaded a video to the Internet, he was forced to go into hiding for three days before Hamas authorities caught and jailed him.
“I’m not trying to make you think I’m a hero,” he says in his testimony. “I’m just one of thousands of people who have faced similar and worse situations.”
“When nasty videos come out, like the one of hundreds of Gazans celebrating the carnage in Jerusalem last week, they give the impression that Gazans are squarely behind Hamas and that’s exactly what Hamas wants,” Joseph Braude, founder and president of the Center for Peace Communications, he told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“Hamas says people are enveloped in resistance, that is their claim to legitimacy, but the reality is that the hundreds who turn up for such events are not a cross-section of the millions who stay home,” he said.
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A designated terrorist organization, according to the US, EU and Israel, Hamas has maintained an iron grip on Gaza since it violently seized the territory in 2007 after Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005. The militant Islamist group, which receives funding and training from Iran, enforces a strict Islamic code on its more than two million residents and continues to engage in the fight against Israel, including firing countless rockets and incendiary devices into Israeli territory, as well as mass protests along the fence of confine.
Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip at the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the founding of Hamas. December 14, 2022. (TPS/Majdi Fathi)
Israel, along with Egypt on its southern border, continues to maintain a tight civilian and military blockade on the area, controlling the flow of goods and people into and out of the Strip, as well as responding to attacks by Hamas and other militants Palestinian groups.
Braude noted, however, that recent polls show a diversity of opinion among Gazans, with the majority saying they are dissatisfied with rocket fire from their territory and accusing Hamas of starting the wars with Israel. There is also deep resentment towards Hamas leaders for leaving the Strip or hiding in bunkers, while civilians suffer the casualties of these constant flare-ups.
“People in Gaza don’t trust them [Hamas] but they are repressed,” Braude said, adding that many even refer to Hamas, not Israel, as the force occupying Gaza.
Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestine Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center in Israel, told Fox News Digital that the videos accurately reflected attitudes in the Gaza Strip and that, according to his estimates, only 25 Approximately 50% of the population – mostly Hamas members and their families – supported the Hamas government.
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“I talk to people in Gaza a lot and it’s quite clear that most of the public is hurting and strongly opposes the Hamas administration,” he said. “The big problem, however, is that there is a deep fear of Hamas and a clear understanding that any protest against the organization will be met with great force.”
Milshtein said that there had been some civilian protests in recent years, mainly due to the dire economic situation, but that “at the moment, Hamas is still strong and while there is the possibility of another explosion of protests against them, they are not I’m sure it will be effective.”
A Palestinian boy sits on a swing hanging from a tree trunk in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 3, 2023. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
Braude, whose organization is supported by the Arab Council for Regional Integration, which promotes Israeli-Arab engagement, said the goal of the project was not just to “help Gazans break the blockade” imposed by Hamas, but also to spark a new conversation on the world situation.
Since its launch two weeks ago, the Whispers In Gaza series, which has been featured by a number of independent media outlets and is available in six languages – Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Persian – has garnered nearly three million views. with the largest audiences being found in the Arab world and North America.
In Gaza, Hamas reportedly reacted angrily to the videos by sending armies of bots to take down the organization’s distribution platforms and doctoring some of the clips with its own voiceovers. In one of the altered versions, Braude said, the testimony of a Palestinian mother describing anxiety over sending her children to a Hamas-run school was changed to the voice of a mother expressing pride that her son joined the resistance.
Monitoring the wider reaction to the videos on social media, Braude said: “We have seen the beginning of what we would like to achieve, which, simply put, is starting a new conversation about what is happening in Gaza – a conversation that is broader and deeper than the controversies that erupt every time there is a war.”
“We interviewed dozens of people inside Gaza on the condition that we would not show their faces, and we would alter their voices and bring in a team of very creative animators, musicians, artists, to transform their voices into, I think, rather beautiful videos that are somehow more memorable in the way they artistically depict these people’s lives,” she explained.
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A candidate is measured at a Hamas recruitment center in Gaza City June 3, 2013. (Reuters/Mohammed Salem)
In perhaps the most powerful of the 25 testimonials, a woman called only “Zainab,” tells viewers: “There is a false stereotype that Palestinians in Gaza love rockets and wars. Gazans dislike war, wars taking place in Gaza are conducted by the Hamas government for political purposes that serve only them.”
“We do not want war, we want a dignified life, our mental and physical health is at risk due to a situation that we have not chosen,” he continues. “One faction is fighting in the name of the Palestinian people, but not all Palestinians agree. My fight is to communicate with Palestinians and Israelis and make them understand that I am a human being here in Gaza, not a beast or a terrorist, or a gun lover because guns will get us nowhere in the end.”
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and founder of Inside the Middle East, an educational program, told Fox: “These videos have the potential to make an impact, but only if they can change the narrative. [about Gaza] in the West and start a new process in which Western circles will finally hold Hamas accountable.”
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“If these videos can generate a new discussion that Hamas, which serves as a government for its people, is no longer exempt from any responsibility, it will empower the many people in Gaza, I would even say the majority of people there, who resent Hamas,” he said.
The voices and identities of the Gazans featured in the videos have all been independently authenticated by experts.
