These protests have attracted hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians. Protesters have been chanting slogans and holding signs criticizing the Hamas-led authorities in Gaza, with some people calling for an end to Hamas’ rule. Smaller protests have also taken place in Jabalia refugee camp, Shuja’iya and Khan Younis, where protesters also chanted slogans against specific Hamas leaders.
“We are entitled to live with dignity. We started marching because we want a solution to our suffering. No one incited us or told us to protest. People are protesting because they cannot live, they wanted change… Security forces came threatening and beating us, accusing us of being traitors, simply for raising our voices. We will continue to protest, no matter the risk.”
He described how after a protest on 16 April, members of Hamas security services summoned him for interrogation, along with several others from the neighbourhood of al-Atatra where he lives. He said he and others were taken to a building in Mashrou’ Beit Lahia which had been transformed into a makeshift detention centre, and were beaten by around 50 armed men in civilian clothes:
“I was beaten on my neck, on my back, with wooden sticks on my neck. They shouted at me…They accused me of being a traitor – a collaborator with the Mossad [Israeli intelligence agency]. I told them we took to the streets because we wanted to live, we wanted to eat and drink… "
An 18-year-old student told Amnesty International that men in plainclothes threatened to harm him and his family if he did not stop protesting.
One woman displaced from Beit Lahia to Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on 16 May, told Amnesty … referencing a comment made by a senior Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, in which he said: “The house will be rebuilt and the martyr…we will reproduce tenfold,” she told Amnesty:
“They [Hamas leaders] don’t care for our suffering. Even if I rebuild my house that was destroyed, the memories and life I had there will never be rebuilt. My cousin lost her husband and three children in an Israeli strike. Can he look at her and say that her children will be reproduced?”
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