Rallies for innocence in Gaza
In cities across Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of Palestinian civilians marched against Hamas. It was the largest protest against the militant group since it sparked a war with Israel more than 17 months ago. Clearly, the fear of harsh retribution by Hamas for speaking out is falling among the territory’s 2 million residents as they face further war devastation.
Yet more telling was what drove protesters to set aside their fears: a claim of innocence.
In one video on the platform X, a man in the northern city of Beit Lahia yells to a crowd, “We are a peaceful people. ... We just want to live.” One construction worker told the German Press Agency, “We shouldn’t have to keep paying the price for leaders who only care about their own power.” A slogan on one sign read, “We refuse to be the ones who die.”
Such statements point to the fact that Hamas purposely embeds its leaders, fighters, and weapons inside civilian buildings to draw Israeli bombs, a clear violation of international law. For its part, the Israeli military says it tries to follow the rules of war by giving proper warning to civilians to flee an area before bombing a Hamas site.
“People have realized that Hamas is using them as pawns and human shields, nothing more,” Hamza Howidy, a peace activist from Gaza, told The Times of Israel last year. “They have realized that Hamas’s only strategy is to maximize civilian casualties.”
Many in Gaza may be emboldened to speak out after an edict last year from a prominent Muslim scholar, Salman al-Dayah. He said Hamas failed to keep its fighters “away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians.”
Some experts on the Middle East say wars often end when people caught in a conflict start to empathize with innocent victims on both sides. That realization is behind the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that prohibit the use of civilians as shields. Many in Gaza are now trying to turn their innocence into a shield, one that may help end this war.
