After thousands of Gazans took to the streets last week in a rare display of defiance against the Hamas terror group, a strategic advisor for a Christian advocacy group believes it is "unconscionable" for anti-Israel activists in the West to continue supporting Hamas.

Phillip Dolitsky, an Orthodox Jew who works on issues related to foreign policy for The Philos Project, a United States-based nonprofit that equips Christians to support Israel and the Jewish people, says the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is not the sole focus of the protests in Gaza.

"They want Hamas out," Dolitsky told The Christian Post. "And I think that now that Hamas has been made vulnerable and that its capability has been so greatly depleted, finally, there are people who are trying to call for an end to Hamas rule." 

Senior Hamas officials have claimed that the demonstrations that erupted last week are directed against Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza, which began after Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, and took around 240 hostages. 

Since the war began, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says over 50,000 people have died in Gaza, a figure that doesn't differentiate between combatants and civilians. 

Israel's military response has led to a series of anti-Israel demonstrations in the West, with activists in the United States setting up protest encampments on college campuses. Many of the anti-Israel demonstrators expressed support for Hamas, and Jewish students at various institutions reported that they experienced antisemitic harassment from the demonstrators. 

"I think it's unconscionable that there are people in the West who would support this genocidal group, which has done nothing but destroy, rape, kill, and plunder," Dolitsky stated. "And when the people who live underneath them want an end to their rule." 

"This is a ripe opportunity for people to decide who they're going to side with," he continued. "Are they going to side with the people of Gaza, who are protesting Hamas? Or Western people on college campuses who are in favor of Hamas?"

In a video shared by the Center for Peace Communications last Tuesday, the protesters in Gaza can be heard chanting, "'Hamas get out!' Gaza's people don't want wars. They demand the end of Hamas's rule. They demand peace."

Another video shared online shows a large group of protesters south of the Gaza Strip declaring, "Oh the shame, you sold Gaza with dollars," and, "Hamas is a terrorist." In the footage of a protest in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the protesters chant, "Out, out Hamas!"

According to an opinion poll published in March 2024, 70% of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank said they are satisfied with Hamas' actions. Sixty-three percent said that they "prefer a 'day after' scenario in which Hamas remains in control of Gaza rather than the Palestinian Authority."

Dolitsky speculated that the reason for the anti-Hamas protests is that Gazans have finally had enough of the terror group, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, adding that Hamas "continually sells out the people it claims to govern."

He highlighted reports of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid and murdering innocent Gazans who attempted to take any of it. 

"It is a brutal, dictatorial regime that not only hates Israelis but also hates even its own people who stand in the way of their genocidal aims," Dolitsky said, suggesting Gazans are upset that the ceasefire didn't continue and that the war has interrupted Ramadan, a sacred time for Muslims. 

Now that the Israeli military has eliminated multiple Hamas leaders who were key to the terror group maintaining control over Gaza's population, the calls for their rule to end can finally resonate, Dolitsky believes. 

"The Israeli government, by its military action, has perhaps changed the future there by making it, frankly, unpalatable to allow Hamas to rule these people," he said. "And I think the people of Gaza now recognize that."

Hamas is the "greatest barrier to peace," he contends, warning that allowing groups with terrorist affinities to rule Gaza will only result in a return to the status quo. A "fresh start" that "leaves behind the sympathies that allowed for Hamas" is necessary for peace, he asserted. 

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump's administration rejected a proposal from a coalition of Arab states that would have required Hamas to grant control to an interim administration until a "reformed" Palestinian Authority could take over Gaza. 

National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in early March that the proposal from Arab states "does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance."

Trump has proposed that the U.S. take over Gaza, a plan that involves rebuilding the region so it is "free from Hamas" and relocating the people who live there. According to Dolitsky, the administration's idea sounds like a "radical plan," but it may provide Gazans with the "fresh start" that they need. 

"We need to rethink what the Middle East looks like without terrorist groups governing people," he said. 

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/why-do-protesters-in-gaza-want-hamas-out-expert-breaks-it-down.html