Anger at Hamas' abuses of civilians is bubbling up in Gaza, 'maverick' Arabic-language outlet shows

Arabic news outlet Jusoor (meaning “bridges” in Arabic) has highlighted repeated Hamas abuses of Gazan citizens in recent months, including an incident in which a woman was beaten and stripped to her underwear by Hamas gunmen in Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital.

According to the report, Hamas gunmen “beat, shot at, and tore the clothes off women” at the hospital on Sunday, while Gazan police confiscated phones from those who recorded the violence and ordered hospital staff to deny medical treatment to the injured.

The assault occurred in the context of an ongoing violent dispute between members of the Ahal family and those linked with Hamas in the Shati Refugee Camp. Several of the Ahal family were hospitalized after a gunfight, and the women had gone to the hospital to visit them, according to a written public statement from Sunday night.

“Armed Hamas men from the Shati police station beat the women, opened fire with live ammunition, arrested several, and denied medical care to others,” the family claimed.

Justoor presented the abuses as part of a broader pattern, with Hamas routinely denying medical care to dissidents, using hospitals as sites for interrogation by torture, and intimidating those who recorded the incidents.

“The thuggery against decent people in the Gaza Strip … has become a systematic policy of humiliating and subduing any free or honorable person who rejects oppression or objects to being abused,” the family said.

“This perverse and shocking violation of basic decency and our people’s customs and traditions requires a firm stand,” they continued, referring to the way women had been stripped of their clothes and headcoverings. “This dirty crime will not be forgiven and those who committed it will face accountability, no matter how long it takes.” 

In a video posted online a woman from the Ahal family expressed her outrage: “How dare you beat a woman while she is trying to cover herself up?” she demanded. “He beat me and tore my cloak while saying, ‘Come here, you bitch’ and other bad language.” 

“They dragged us around by our underclothes, I swear, in front of the whole Al-Shifa hospital,” she said.

She also claimed that when medical staff understood that patients coming to the ER were part of the Ahel family, they were told they needed “written authorization from the police” before they could proceed with treatment.

In a manner mirroring the IRCG practice of demanding payment from bereaved families for the bullets and ropes used to kill them, Hamas members demanded cash reimbursement for the bullets they had fired when a woman returned to the hospital to retrieve her phone.

Among onlookers, it seems that sympathies lay with the Ahel family rather than with Hamas.

“When people saw our shawls were scattered all over the place, a young guy, maybe 16 years old, pulled off his shirt and gave it to me to cover myself with,” the woman relayed. “People were shocked … they felt bad for us, because this is indecent; this violates the Islamic faith.”

Jusoor is based in Washington D.C. with correspondents throughout the Middle East, but has been described as “maverick” by Israeli sources and as “pro-Israel” by others, with pro-Palestinian +972 Magazine accusing the outlet of having “Israel ties.”

Indeed, Jusoor appears to be connected with Israel-adjacent platforms such as Peacecomms, which has brought multiple stories like this to the attention of the public, but they are not the only ones currently addressing the frustration among Gazan civilians towards Hamas. 

The video of the woman describing her attack was also posted on 𝕏 by Gazan dissident Hamza Howidy twice last week in the hope of finding support from the Western pro-Palestine movement, “much of which continues to turn a blind eye to the atrocities Hamas inflicts on Gaza’s residents,” he said.

Hamidy is far from pro-Israel but he is one of the voices from Gaza calling out Hamas atrocities.

“The audacity, barbarity, and cruelty of Hamas is never underestimated,” he stated.

I’m reposting this testimony I published two days ago on the hope that this woman hears at least a word of support from the Western pro-Palestine movement, much of which continues to turn a blind eye to the atrocities Hamas inflicts on Gaza’s residents.

Hamas militants attacked… pic.twitter.com/h0tcKIZqgo

— Hamza (@HowidyHamza) September 9, 2026

Similarly, Gaza native Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib has recently written in the New York Times, expressing frustration that Hamas has empowered Israel’s extremists and “destroyed hope” for the future. He slammed the terror group, saying,

“Despite its posturing as an elite club, Hamas, from its inception, behaved like a mob of gangsters, brutalizing Palestinian women who violated its fanatic sense of morality, torturing and killing those who were suspected of opposing them and carrying out grisly suicide attacks against Israeli civilians,” he claimed.

Alkhatib has also posted a Jusoor video of Dr. Fadel Ashour, a psychiatrist at Gaza's al-Azhar University, describing the culture Hamas has created in Gaza:

“A culture has taken root that normalizes violence, sanctifies death, and legitimizes death as though it were a means of survival,” he said. “Violence has become legitimate and normal… This is certainly not the culture of a society that wants to win and live. A society that wants to win triumphs through building, not through death.”

Ashour asserted that the younger generation could be “transformed collectively” through education.

“We desperately need deradicalization,” he said, “to remove the extremism that's emerged in society and brought us to an abyss that threatens our survival.”

Another dissident, Moumen Al-Natour, also spoke out against Hamas and criticized the hate-filled education in Gaza from a safe distance, having fled the Strip earlier this year:

“I remember my Islamic teacher telling us, ‘kill a Jew and you will enter paradise,’” he said, adding that he saw the devastation of Gaza since Oct. 7 as the result of this hate-filled indoctrination.

“Hamas' ideology must be eliminated, just as Nazism was eradicated and continues to be fought against. 
Everyone talks about rebuilding infrastructure, but no one talks about rebuilding people.... We need a diverse religious discourse similar to the respectful discourse in the UAE that promotes peace and coexistence,” he said.

Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after elections in 2007, but has been required to relinquish power and disarm as part of the peace deal made with Israel a year ago. So far they have failed to do so.

“We’re now starting to understand the scope of the militarization of Gaza. It is beyond your comprehension,” Jared Kushner, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace, told reporters in Kyiv last week. Demilitarizing it is not going to be easy.”