Hamas Crimes No One Talks About
by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 16, 2026 at 5:00 am
According to the Trump peace plan, announced late last year: "Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning..."
The Trump administration and its newly established "Board of Peace," however, have failed to call out Hamas for its ongoing breach of the terms of the ceasefire plan. Hamas has evidently interpreted this silence as a green light to pursue its effort to rearm, regroup and rebuild its regime by killing, torturing, and economically squeezing the residents of the Gaza Strip.
"Hamas governs from within a shattered enclave of two million people. The Board of Peace governs from a conference table in Washington. Hamas collects shekels in taxes on smuggled goods; the Board has no independent revenue stream. Hamas integrates 10,000 police personnel into proposed structures; the Board must still wait for countries to commit personnel to a stabilization force. Hamas appoints governors and mayors; the Board awaits reports." — Ranjan Solomon, Middle East Monitor, March 10, 2026.
Hamas is rebuilding its financial machinery by collecting taxes, fees, and customs charges on goods entering the Gaza Strip. The money is not being invested in reconstruction. Instead, it is going toward rebuilding the terrorist group's military capabilities.
The people in this photo are just some of many who have been executed, shot, kidnapped, or brutally tortured in recent weeks. The list of atrocities grows by the day, and the sheer sadism on display goes beyond anything comprehensible (even for those of us who were born and raised in Gaza and saw Hamas's brutality up close for years). We thought we had seen the floor of their depravity. There is no floor for those people." — Gaza-born journalist Hamza Howidy, March 13, 2026.
"The 'crime' those people committed? Saying their own opinions. What makes this even worse than the suffering of those victims itself is the silence of the people who built entire careers screaming about Palestinian suffering... The Palestinians left to die under Hamas's boots are apparently the wrong kind of Palestinians, too inconvenient, too disruptive to the narrative, and too alive in ways that don't serve 'the cause'" — Hamza Howidy, March 13, 2026.
"Hamas's fascist militias tortured my dear friend Ashraf Naser Shallah, who has been in and out of hospitals in Gaza City over the past couple of days. They took his phone, stole his wallet with critical documents, and threatened to kill him if he continued to speak out against their terrorism, the Iranian regime, the fraudulent 'resistance' narrative, the desire for peace with Israelis, and his refusal to be cannon fodder in failed Jihadi ideologies that have destroyed the Palestinian people in Gaza" — Gaza-born political activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, March 10, 2026.
As long as the world's attention remains focused elsewhere, Hamas will continue to rebuild its authority in the Gaza Strip without facing serious international scrutiny. Hamas seems to believe that time works in its favor. The longer the international community's silence persists, the easier it becomes for the terror group to reestablish itself as the only legitimate power.
While some international parties continue searching for diplomatic formulas and peace plans to stabilize the Gaza Strip, Hamas has made one thing abundantly clear: it has no intention of relinquishing terrorism or power. Until that reality changes, no peace plan will have a realistic chance of transforming the future of the Gaza Strip.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22342/hamas-crimes-gaza
