Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians - NYT

[question everything]

Last edited Mon May 13, 2024, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)

The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The unit, known as the General Security Service, relied on a network of Gaza informants, some of whom reported their own neighbors to the police. People landed in security files for attending protests or publicly criticizing Hamas. In some cases, the records suggest that the authorities followed people to determine if they were carrying on romantic relationships outside marriage.

Hamas has long run an oppressive system of governance in Gaza, and many Palestinians there know that security officials watch them closely. But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, delivered only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the degree to which the largely unknown unit penetrated the lives of Palestinians.

The documents show that Hamas leaders, despite claiming to represent the people of Gaza, would not tolerate even a whiff of dissent. Security officials trailed journalists and people they suspected of immoral behavior. Agents got criticism removed from social media and discussed ways to defame political adversaries. Political protests were viewed as threats to be undermined.

(snip)

The documents were provided to The Times by officials in Israel’s military intelligence directorate, who said they had been seized in raids in Gaza.

More..

https://archive.ph/1CoYC

Looks like the archives still prevent a view of the whole story so I hope that this link works

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/world/europe/secret-hamas-files-palestinians.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk0.GGIp.XKKDszHdDlwi&smid=url-share

[LeftInTX]

1. Kick!

[maxsolomon]

2. I'm cancelling my NYT subscription again!

It's totally in Trump's pocket!

[MustLoveBeagles]

3. It's not surprising

[LeftInTX]

4. Destroyed cameras and phones of journalists who recorded opposition to Hamas.

Early in the war, he said he took images of security forces hitting people who fought over spots in line outside a bakery. The authorities confiscated his camera.

[LeftInTX]

5. Stuff prior to Oct 2023. Of course Hamas controls the narrative

Link to tweet

@amnesty
, are you going to condemn the atracks by Hamas on the freedom of speach in Gaza? Or you only condemn anything if you can blame it on Jews?
10:04 AM · Aug 9, 2023

Imshin
@imshin
·
Jul 30, 2023

Demonstration in Gaza this afternoon. Note the children towards the end shouting "Shia! Shia!" mocking Hamas for being the lackeys of Shiite Iran.
Gaza journalist Ihab Fasfous filming says he was threatened twice by Hamas police. He stands his own though, demandimg to see the person's identification. The blurb says he was arrested.
#TheGazaYouDontSee
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLxnejb5/

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate: "We strongly condemn the attack by Hamas security forces on journalist Walid Abdel Rahman, a member of the General Secretariat of the Syndicate, while he was covering a demand march in Jabalia ("refugee&quot camp (Gaza City), in addition to

·

Demo In Gaza Turns Tense As Journalist Faces Threats From Hamas
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307317143

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Ih

ab Fasfous (Khan Younis, Gaza Strip)
Hamas security forces arrested Ihab Fasfoos, a 46-year-old freelance journalist, at his home in Khan Younis on March 13, hours after he posted on Facebook video footage he took from a “We Want to Live” protest and shared a news report about it. They seized his computer and phone and transported him to an Internal Security facility, accusing him of organizing the protest and causing “sedition.”

Fasfous said that, during interrogations at an Internal Security facility in Khan Younis, officers accused him “receiving orders from Ramallah.” Interrogators produced a printout of Facebook posts and berated him for criticizing Hamas. He said the pointed to one that criticized Hamas’s motives during the Great March of Return, regular protests alongside fences with Israel against Israeli rights abuses, and accused him of being a “collaborator” and “working against the resistance.” Between questions, interrogators struck Fasfous in the face and all over his body and poured cold water on him, he said.

They charged him with “incitement via Facebook,” but released him after a day due to a health issue, on condition that he return the next day. He did not return, though, when he learned that authorities had decided to release all journalists. His case remains open, he said.

https://www.hrw.org/node/330496/printable/print

Hamas authorities detained over 1,000 people, often using excesive force in the process, during “We Want to Live” demonstrations in March, according to the Palestinian statutory watchdog ICHR. The protests were spurred by the cost of living and taxes imposed by Hamas on goods like cigarettes and vegetables, against a background of Israel’s decade-plus-long closure of Gaza. Among those arrested were 23 journalists and five Palestinian human rights workers as they documented abuses, including staff of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Al Dameer Association for Human Rights in Gaza, as well as an Amnesty International employee.

In its letter to Human Rights Watch, though, the Hamas Interior Ministry said that, while it summoned “dozens” for questioning for damaging property and triggering riots, it released all but nine “main instigators” within 48 hours. It justified arrests as necessary to protect citizens and combat “sedition,” saying investigations indicated that Palestinian Authority Intelligence orchestrated the protests. It denied holding any registered journalists.

Hamas gunmen foil large-scale economic protests, warns PA sparking Gaza rallies
Hundreds of Hamas officers and gunmen were deployed in various parts of the Gaza Strip ahead of the planned protests, which erupted in the late afternoon under the slogan “We want to live!”
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-753804

In Gaza, journalist Amer Balousha said he was beaten and detained by Hamas’s security forces for a Facebook post critical of the leadership. “Do your children sleep on the floor like ours do?” he said he wrote on the social media platform.

Taghreed Abu Teer recalls being held by Hamas authorities for 11 days and interrogated under “humiliating circumstances” for her activities with the rival Fatah movement during an interview in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 22

The report documents more than 80 cases of torture and arbitrary arrests, some for nothing more than writing a critical article or Facebook post, others for belonging to the wrong student group or political movement.

I know these are "small potatoes" events, but it does show who controls the narrative in Gaza. Hamas likes to say there is a war on journalists, but they are complicit.

[Cha]

6. TY for all those tweets and info, LeftinTX!