by Jake Wallis Simons, Telegraph
Ordinary Palestinians are rising up against Jihadis. Why is not more being made of it by the Saturday marchers?
Over the last 48 hours, there have been more protests against Hamas inside Gaza than we have seen over the past 17 months in London. The marches first emerged in the north of the Strip, with beleaguered Gazans bravely calling for the release of Israeli hostages, facing down reprisals from their jihadi overlords. When did you last hear such demands at the rallies endured by our capital on Saturdays?
The uprisings are ongoing. They have spread south, even erupting in the Hamas stronghold of Jabalia in Gaza City, where a protest in 2019 was viciously repressed by the jihadis.
It is impossible to know whether they will be snuffed out by hastily recruited 16-year-olds with Kalashnikovs or if this is the start of something bigger. But the episode has already neatly revealed the deplorable hypocrisy at the heart of Gaza activism in Britain, seemingly more concerned with feeding a lust for the denigration of Israel than the welfare of the Palestinians.
I first learnt about the protests from my old friend in Gaza City, whom I know from my time as a foreign correspondent. He sent me a message on WhatsApp containing links to footage on Facebook. I was unable to open them. “Try to please,” he implored. “Important videos.”
He was desperate to get the word out because he and his comrades felt they were facing a media blackout. The irony was stark. The BBC falls over itself to blame Israel the minute civilians are killed, without waiting for the facts; yet risk your life to protest against Hamas and the prevarication is palpable. Here were real-life Palestinians making their voices heard in Gaza, only for journalists to stick their fingers in their ears because it disrupted the narrative they’d been peddling for the past, well, forever.
Read also: Hundreds join Gaza’s largest anti-Hamas protest since war began, BBC