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Hundreds of Gazans took to the streets on Wednesday for a second day of anti-war protests, with many calling for Hamas to leave in a rare show of dissent against the militant group in the shattered Palestinian enclave.
Many of the banners carried by protesters who took part in Wednesday’s demonstrations called for an end to the devastating war in Gaza, during which Israeli forces have reduced much of the enclave to rubble, without referring to Hamas directly.
But in a rare display of public anger against the militant group, which even after 17 months of war still wields substantial power in the enclave, some protesters also chanted openly against it.
Footage of one demonstration in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza, which was widely shared on social media, showed hundreds of protesters marching down a heavily damaged street chanting “Hamas out”.
Other images showed protesters brandishing placards and banners with messages such as “No to hunger”, “Stop the war and displacement” and “The blood of our children is not cheap”.
The protests followed similar demonstrations on Tuesday, which drew hundreds of participants and also included chants against Hamas, in the largest show of public anger against the group since the start of the war.
The war has become the deadliest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took 250 people hostage.
In response, Israel launched a devastating offensive which has so far killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials, as well as creating a humanitarian catastrophe for the enclave’s 2.2mn inhabitants.
Israeli officials seized on the reports of protests to claim that their renewed offensive against Hamas, which began after Israel broke a two-month-old truce last week, was working. In a statement on Wednesday, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz called on Gazans to “learn from the residents of Beit Lahia”.
Hamas supporters played down the protests, and accused those who took part of being traitors to the Palestinian cause. But other Gazans took to social media to voice support.
“People are not demanding a miracle or the impossible. They want to see their children back at school instead of having generations who have forgotten what learning is. They want to sleep in their homes instead of on the streets,” Jameel Abo Saif, from Gaza City, wrote on Facebook.
“When you ask people to step down from government and power, you are not giving up on [a free] Palestine . . . but it is time we got some respite.”
Rawan Saleh, a Facebook user in northern Gaza, took aim at those accusing the protesters of betrayal. “Who are you accusing of treason, idiot? Those who have lived in a tent for more than a year? Those who are hungry?” she wrote. “Those who pay every day their life’s blood as they are displaced from place to place?”
