Captured Palestinian Arabs Curse Hamas for Bringing Ruin on Gaza

Shouts of ‘Allah inflict our vengeance on Hamas’ indicate growing disaffection with the Jihadi group.

AP/Fatima Shbair
Palestinians line up for a free meal in the Gaza Strip. AP/Fatima Shbair

Signs of growing Palestinian disaffection with Hamas received new confirmation Monday when a video clip surfaced of Gazan prisoners breaking into spontaneous curses against the jihadi organization after surrendering to IDF troops.

Shouts of “Allah inflict our vengeance on Hamas! Hamas has destroyed us!” erupted from the Palestinian detainees who stood stripped to their underwear for fear of hidden weapons or suicide vests.

“For 17 years we’ve been waiting!” one of the prisoners yelled. “For 17 years we’ve been living under a regime of extortion … and I swear by Allah that we’ve been waiting for you to liberate us from the oppression of Hamas! Our children are hungry and our women have become beggars!”

At this point in the video another prisoner yells, “let me say what’s in my heart! Our wives are scavenging for bits of food! Our children are dying from hunger!”

At this point an Arabic-speaking Israeli soldier asks, “and who is to blame for this?”

“Hamas!” chorused the prisoners.

This 90-second video clip has gone viral on social media throughout the Arab world. It was uploaded to the internet by the unnamed Israeli soldier who filmed it  and was not produced through official IDF channels. It does provide a look into both growing Palestinian resentment towards Hamas and Israeli procedures for the field interrogation of prisoners.

The Hamas practice of spurning the laws of war by fighting in civilian clothes from civilian buildings poses a dangerous ‘wheat from chaff’ challenge to Israeli troops. Prisoner-of-war interrogators fluent in Arabic are assigned to all IDF front-line combat units.

They conduct on-the-spot questioning of all captured Gazans, releasing those assessed to be non-combatants while transferring suspected terrorists to Israel for further interrogation by the Shabak, Israel’s internal security service.


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