Report lays out Hamas’s fear campaign to silence mentions of its fatalities in Gaza
A report delves into the Hamas terror group’s strategy of avoiding publishing the names of its members killed in the war in Gaza, and into its intimidation campaign aimed at barring Gazans from any mention of such fatalities.
Despite no formal ban, there is an unwritten rule deterring Gazans — even family members of slain Hamas fighters — from publicly mourning their loved ones in a way that identified them with the terror group’s military wing, the Haaretz daily reports, citing unnamed residents of the Strip.
“There is fear to talk publicly about Hamas operatives, including operatives who have been killed,” one is quoted as saying, citing reasons such as fear of being branded a “traitor” or a “collaborator,” and fear of being harassed by Hamas.
“The prevailing assumption on the streets is that if the names of slain gunmen are published, people around the world will identify less strongly with the Gazans’ suffering, and this will give legitimacy to bombing Gaza,” another resident is quoted as saying. “As long as there are clips and stories about the civilian population, nobody says a thing. But if anyone dares to criticize Hamas or to mention the name of a slain fighter, they will call them a traitor and treat them as such.”
This is in contrast to Hamas’s strategy in the West Bank, where it proudly publishes the names of its members killed by the IDF, and to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which maintains a detailed list of that terror group’s fatalities in the near-daily cross-border skirmishes since October 8.
“This is a war of survival also for Hamas’s image around the world,” a third local is quoted as saying. “When armed operatives aren’t mentioned, when their deaths aren’t mentioned, they don’t exist in the discourse.”
The latter adds that another factor is fear that Israeli forces will focus on and harass family members of slain Hamas members.
A fourth resident tells Haaretz that the fog is often so dense that even relatives often don’t know that their loved ones have joined Hamas, or that they have been killed, and that information about these issues is passed quietly as rumors from one to another.
