The March 2025 anti-Hamas protests in Gaza reflected a moment enabled by Hamas’s temporary inability to suppress opposition due to wartime losses. The degradation of its Qassam Brigades, many of whom also serve in internal policing roles, weakened the group’s control over the territory and created an opportunity for public anger over wartime mistreatment to surface.
The protests showcased Hamas’s reliance on coercion and force to maintain power rather than popular legitimacy. The group’s return to targeted repression underscores that future unrest will depend less on public sentiment than on Hamas’s fluctuating capacity to suppress it.
On March 25, thousands of residents across the Gaza Strip took to the streets, demonstrating against Hamas, the Islamist militant group that has governed Gaza since 2007.
The scale and intensity of the protests were unheard of, with slogans like “Hamas are terrorists” and “Hamas, get out!” echoing from Beit Lahia in the north to Rafah in the south (Asharq al-Awsat, March 27; YouTube/واقفين مع جيشنا, March 29). Notably, the protestors were not necessarily calling for peace or rejecting Hamas’s strategy of “resistance,” understood to mean violent confrontation with Israel, including acts of terrorism. Rather, Gazans rallied to condemn Hamas’s failure to shield the territory’s population from the catastrophic consequences of the war it launched on October 7, 2023.
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