‘Do you know how many generations want revenge now?’ How Gazans see their future with or without Hamas

Hamas attacking on 7 October 2023

Sheren Falah Saab and Jack Khoury write in Haaretz on 9 October 2025:

On October 7, 2024, dozens of people gathered at an improvised café in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. Amid the plastic chairs surrounded by plastic sheeting, with access to the internet if you paid by the hour, the customers learned of Khaled Meshal’s statement on Al Jazeera. The Hamas leader was marking the first anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, as the October 7 attack is called in the Gaza Strip.

Meshal was buoyant. He called the attack “blessed” and “a turning point in the history of the conflict,” while congratulating Gazans for their fortitude. He said the attack brought the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of the international arena, revealing the true face of the “Zionist entity” and proving that the real losers in the war were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel. “Hamas has won,” “the resistance has won,” he declared. “Our losses are only tactical.”

“People got annoyed,” says someone who was there. “That statement, ‘tactical loss,’ was infuriating. We realized that Hamas didn’t care about the people. After a year of war – at that time, it was one year – they only saw us as ‘a tactical loss.'”

This man wasn’t the only person angry. Gaza was no paradise before October 7, and had been suffering from an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, shortages and poverty. But today, after two years of war, a vast majority of Gazans would gladly return to life before the fighting.

“I lost my family, my home, everything I had in Gaza, but these people are saying ‘tactical losses,'” one Gazan said bitterly in a video on social media after Meshal’s speech. “The cost of living, the hunger, our heartbreak – it’s all tactical. Don’t regret it, because the Jews have lost strategically. It’s all a question of outlook.”

Now, with U.S. President Donald Trump sealing a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Meshal’s speech is coming up again and again in conversations with Gazans about the group.

“I expected that Meshal would talk about the victims, the families that were killed, or at least propose a plan to alleviate the suffering,” says Mohammed, 43, who has uprooted his wife and children six times and is now living in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. “But he wasn’t interested in the people’s pain. The leaders owe an apology to the Palestinian people, while not making provocative statements that emphasize their refusal to acknowledge their mistakes over the years.”

This disappointment raises another question: Does the organization that led the Gazans to their biggest disaster ever still control them, or is it a pale shadow that the people hope will fade forever?

From interviews with Gazans and Hamas members, it emerges that, amid the chaos and destruction, there is still an organizational and military core that is not always visible, as well as a civilian apparatus that is still functioning on a thread of legitimacy. In the absence of a replacement, the thread has not yet entirely unraveled.

A crisis of trust
According to S., a member of Hamas’ political wing, the destruction since October 7 has pushed the people to ask: “‘Why is this happening to us?’ ‘Why is Hamas worthy of leading us?’ Many people are convinced that October 7 was a fatal mistake, and even longtime supporters are casting doubt.”

An anti-war demonstration in Beit Lahia, Gaza, in March 2025

There’s no controversy about the crisis of trust. “The more time goes by, the more people are having a hard time believing that the organization is acting for them,” Mohammed says.

“It wasn’t like that at the beginning of the war. During the first days there was euphoria, there were people who thought our situation would change, that the invasion of Israel would liberate Palestine. But they didn’t imagine that the response would come with so much force. Some people even doubted that the Israeli army would enter on the ground.”

Nabil, 47, a Gaza City resident who until the war was a high school teacher, remembers the atmosphere well. “At first I didn’t know about the hostages and the harm to families and children, but I know Hebrew, so I started to look for what they were saying on the news in Israel, and I immediately realized that the situation was very grave,” he says. “People around me were talking about Hamas’ bravery in attacking Israel that way, but I expected a harsh Israeli response.”

A bit later, when Israel’s first evacuation order came, Nabil thought Hamas would address the people. “That was the first breaking point as far as I was concerned,” he says.  “The operatives disappeared into hiding places and turned their backs on us. I realized that Hamas had abandoned us, that we’d have to manage on our own. Anyone who had money fled during the first few months. People like me who don’t have money or couldn’t leave because of their circumstances realized that the attack had brought a disaster down on us and no victory at all.”

Relations between Hamas and Gazans were complex even before the war. According to an opinion poll by the Arab Barometer research group in September and October 2023, most Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank did not support Hamas as a political organization; in Gaza, support was only at about one-third. But the idea of armed resistance is popular, also among many people who don’t support Hamas.

At the time, Hamas was considered a regime that provided a kind of stability but was far from effective or fair. In a 2022 Arab Barometer survey, only 38 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with Gaza’s health system, and about 54 percent considered the education system, sanitation services and infrastructure terrible, amid an overall feeling of prolonged neglect. According to a Human Rights Watch report in 2021, many of Hamas resources’ were directed to its military wing.

In March 2019, this dissatisfaction led to riots. Young men took to the streets in their thousands and cried “We want to live,” protesting the high taxes and the increase in prices of basic goods, the blackouts and the natural gas shortage. Hamas’ response was especially violent.

But even then, the organization enjoyed support. “You have to realize that Hamas was responsible for every area of life in the Strip: commerce, the economy, infrastructure, education – everything. We got too used to a person from Hamas, a government employee, being the place to apply when there was trouble, for everything,” says Ahmed a 27-year-old from Deir al-Balah.

For example, Hamas ensured that people received coupons for buying food, and that the garbage collection and policing services worked. “Some of them would go around the neighborhoods and show a presence, asking the people how they were doing,” Ahmed says. “This contributed to their legitimacy over the years.”

According to Aisha, who left Gaza in March last year and is living with family in Egypt, “Before the war they had broad popular support, both as a government and a resistance movement.” She says this stemmed from both the need for services “and because, over the years, Hamas distorted the image of the Palestinian Authority and depicted it as submissive to the settlers and the army.”

But the war exposed the organization’s faults, especially its inability to look after the people. “The extent of the destruction and the daily suffering led many people, even some employees of Hamas, to abandon it. This doesn’t mean it has no support. Many people still support its military operations against Israel and are even willing to be active in that.”

Women of Hamas’ military wing in a show of force in Gaza in 2017. “Before the war they had broad popular support, both as a government and a resistance movement.” Credit: Adel Hana/AP
In March the anger erupted in spontaneous demonstrations. In Gaza City and then in Khan Yunis, Jabalya, Beit Hanoun, Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat, young people marched through the ruined streets shouting “Out, out, Hamas get out,” a sight that people say they never saw in previous wars.

Ahmed, who at the beginning of the war had just begun his fourth year of medical school, took part in the demonstrations. “No one asked me if I wanted this war,” he says. “When I saw the rockets in the sky at 6:30 in the morning on October 7, I didn’t realize what was happening. As time passes, I realize more and more that we’re the ones who are paying the price.  “I’ve lost my home, my mother is sick and I fight every day to find medication for her. My studies have stopped and I have no future in the Gaza Strip, but the people from Hamas never asked, not once, if we needed anything. This is so infuriating. Hamas really deceived us.”

Rital, 28, has moved eight times during the war and is now living with her parents and three brothers in a shared tent in Deir el-Balah. Women don’t take part in the demonstrations, but many have encouraged their brothers and husbands.  “We’re exhausted by the war, by the sounds of the explosions, by the death,” she says. “You have to struggle for every little thing – water, food, even a tent. So yes, I encouraged my brothers to demonstrate even though Hamas might harm them because we didn’t want the war to continue. Hamas can no longer decide for us, and the world has to understand this.”

But 32-year-old Karim, who fled to Europe more than five years ago after he gave vent to his criticism, doesn’t believe that the people’s will interests Hamas. “Even if all of Gaza becomes one big cemetery, Hamas will strive to run this cemetery. They won’t give up their rule easily,” he says. “The people don’t interest them. They keep sanctifying their supreme aim, the armed struggle.”

Hamas continues to intimidate the people with threats and public executions, he says. The most recent execution, according to Reuters, came on September 21, when three men were put to death for allegedly collaborating with Israel. According to the news agency, a security source in the Gaza government said the executions were carried out by “the Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian resistance.”

Three days earlier, Hamas announced that six civilians had been executed in northern Gaza on the same charge, as reported by Saudi-based Al Arabiya television. “Hamas has always executed people because of suspicions of collaboration,” Karim says. “In this war the suspicion has been greater, and the executions have also aimed at sending a message to the people: “We’re here, watch out.”

As an activist at a charitable organization linked to Hamas puts it, “There isn’t full control of territory, but rather cells – areas where top Hamas people are still living and operating underground. There are also new recruits. Today Hamas isn’t always in the streets, but if they want to, they’ll show a presence.”

He says a network of civil and economic mechanisms keeps the organization in power. “They control the Health Ministry, civil defense and the entry of goods, and they’re also still collecting taxes,” he says. The collection of taxes, the imposition of customs duties and the partial control of humanitarian aid become not only a means of governance, but also a lever of power.

“Since March 18, Hamas has disappeared from the surface, but they still exist,” says A., an opponent of the organization, referring to the day Israel breached a cease-fire. “There are officials, police, workers at hospitals – not all of them are members of Hamas, but they are present with their armed guards.”

According to A., one of Hamas’ methods for instilling fear is uncertainty. “You can post a video against them and they don’t react immediately. At some point they do a pinpoint attack and with a great deal of force,” he says. “They can come in the middle of the night and shoot you. This has happened several times. This strategy generates silent fear. Maybe the public doesn’t see the patch on the sleeve, but they know it’s there.”

Uday Nasr Sa’adi al-Raba’i, a leader of the demonstrations in March, learned this for himself. His brother Jihad told Al Arabiya that members of Hamas’ military wing came to the school where al-Raba’i had been displaced.

“They fired into the air to scare people away and warned that they would shoot anybody who came near. Then they took him away.” A few days later, al-Raba’i’s body was found with signs of harsh abuse.

In July last year, Wassim Assad Sawir was murdered. His relatives say Hamas operatives took him away and tortured him after he uploaded a video critical of Al Jazeera, which he said “was encouraging Hamas’ military force” in its losing battle.  “Anybody who uploads videos or utters criticism of Hamas publicly puts himself and his family in real danger,” Aisha says. “They’re capable of making him disappear, so a lot of people prefer to remain silent.”

A similar story is that of Ziad Abu Haya, a Gazan linked to the Fatah movement, Hamas’ main competitor in Palestinian politics. In September 2024 he criticized the organization in an interview with Al Arabiya and begged: “Save us from Hamas.”  According to Al Arabiya, three months later armed men linked to Hamas burst into Abu Haya’s tent in Khan Yunis, dragged him out naked, beat him and kicked him. A day later his body was found.

No alternative
Not only fear is keeping the Hamas regime alive. Nils Mallock of the XCEPT research group at King’s College London has written in The Guardian about opinion polls by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. According to the polls, support for Hamas in Gaza had dropped from 42 percent after October 7, 2023 to only 21 percent in January this year.

According to Mallock, fewer and fewer people in Gaza believed that Hamas could defeat Israel, and many people preferred negotiations. But he added that even if elections were held back then, in February, Hamas would have done well, mainly because of a lack of an alternative.

“Without a real alternative, Hamas remains the address. The clans and the militias can’t serve as a replacement,” says A., the Hamas opponent. “Even if there were free and fair elections, Hamas would maintain about 30 percent support, mainly among young men who saw it as the miracle of the resistance.”

According to S., the member of Hamas’ political wing, “As long as the Israeli occupation continues in this cruel form, a nucleus of Hamas will remain. Do you know how many generations want revenge now? Israel isn’t proposing any alternative but only more humiliation, pain and death, with no political horizon, with the threat of expulsion and transfer. This fuels passion, which in turn creates continuity for the organization.”

R., a senior official in the Hamas regime since it seized power in 2007, says support for the group is a product of awareness as well as military might. “In the days of Palestinian Authority rule, the people knew humiliation and a tough Israeli presence, and to this day many people prefer a leadership that represents a stubborn stance, even at the price of disaster,” he says.

R. notes that in addition to the physical presence and displays of power in Hamas’ ceremonies, symbols and executions, the organization also controls customs duties and the distribution of humanitarian aid, as well as taxation.

“As long as there is no clear alternative … it’s hard to assess what the public’s will is,” he says. “Ultimately, the people want a horizon.”

When Hamas supporters are asked about their support for the organization today, many mention the situation in the West Bank. “True, here it’s catastrophic and everything is destroyed, and they’re telling us it’s because of October 7, but in the West Bank they didn’t do an October 7,” says T., a Hamas activist. “And it could even be said that Abu Mazen and the PA leadership are as disciplined as can be and dependent on Israel,” he says, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“So, is there stability there? A political horizon? No. There is dispossession, expropriation, settlements, strangulation and plans for annexation and imposing sovereignty. So the claim that it’s all because of October 7 is a lie. Actually, the Netanyahu government, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are exploiting October 7 to erase the Palestinian issue, with the backing of the U.S. administration,” he says, referring to the two main far-rightists in the government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Most Gazans are living with mixed feelings, between a need for Hamas and even dependency on it, and fury at it. Only a few are rebelling openly. If no one will arise and rebuild, why risk opposition?

The bottom line is hard: Even when it’s battered, humiliated and lambasted from within, Hamas will remain part of Gaza’s social and emotional infrastructure. It will remain there as long as there is no sustainable alternative to restore people’s faith in their ability to lead normal lives.

The question of whether a different authority or external organization will be able to offer a new horizon remains open. “We’ve been trapped between a war from the outside with Israel bombing us and our own internal war with Hamas,” says Ahmed, the former medical student. “It’s a wide rift, and it’s not clear how it will end.”

This article is reproduced in its entirety