The “Free Palestine” movement has remained silent on the arrest, torture, and murder of anti-Hamas protesters in Palestine. The violence and repression committed by the Hamas terrorist organization against Palestinian civilians throw a wrinkle into its narrative blaming Israel and President Trump for all of the suffering in Gaza. The protests also dispel claims by the American left that Gazans want to be ruled by Hamas or that Hamas is the legitimate governing authority.
For the second time in little more than a year, Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets demanding an end to Hamas rule. According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Hamas’s approval rating fell from 52 percent in December 2023 to 43 percent by May 2025. The demonstrations, organized as the “June 26 Peaceful Revolution,” reflected growing anger over nearly two decades of Hamas control, the devastation of the war, and allegations of corruption and repression.
The protests were organized across 18 locations throughout the Gaza Strip. Demonstrators called on Hamas to disarm and transfer civil administration to a transitional governing authority.
Hamas responded with a sweeping crackdown. Security forces arrested organizers, kidnapped suspected participants, threatened demonstrators, and used mosques to denounce the protests before many rallies could begin. Armed operatives arrested Gazans in the streets, seized mobile phones, restricted movement around displaced persons camps, and rounded up others at hospitals.
Although the crackdown prevented large-scale demonstrations in many areas, hundreds of Palestinians defied the threats and publicly called for Hamas’s removal.
In the days preceding the protests, Hamas launched what activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born Palestinian now living in exile in the United States, described as an “industrial-scale campaign of terror, intimidation, interrogation, and blackmail” against thousands of Gazans who had planned to participate.
Hellbound and Down 