Last month, the world was stunned by images coming out of northern Gaza. In Beit Lahiya, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets in the largest protest against Hamas since the war with Israel began. Videos circulating on social media showed young men marching boldly, chanting, “Out, out, out – Hamas out!” amid the rubble of their broken city. Some held signs, others megaphones. But all of them carried a powerful message: Hamas must go.
Then came the crackdown. Masked gunmen, believed to be Hamas fighters, descended on the crowds. Some held rifles, others batons. Protesters were beaten, chased, and arrested. It looked like a rare moment of resistance – ordinary people rising up against the rulers who have dominated Gaza with an iron fist since 2007.
But this spectacle, for all its raw emotion and viral momentum, raises a deeper and far more disturbing question: What if this wasn’t an organic uprising at all? What if it was something far more calculated? What if this protest – this act of apparent defiance – was a show? A performance directed by Hamas itself?
It wouldn’t be the first time. Hamas, like other totalitarian movements, is a master of manipulation. From martyr posters and press releases to staged funerals and photos of children in rubble, Hamas has long known how to choreograph suffering for strategic effect.
They understand the optics of pain, the power of Western sympathy, and the way social media can transform local outrage into global outrage. They know that a viral clip of a civilian shouting against Hamas is just as useful – sometimes more useful – than a clip of them blaming Israel.
So why not let a protest happen? Why not allow a carefully monitored flashpoint to erupt, just long enough to generate headlines and sow confusion? Why not let the world see a Hamas crackdown – brief, violent, emotional – and then move swiftly to suppress it, claiming foreign interference and “suspicious political agendas”?
In doing so, Hamas achieves the impossible: They appear both embattled and in control. They pose as victims of internal dissent, while remaining the unchallenged rulers of Gaza. The protesters get painted as traitors or Zionist collaborators.
Meanwhile, the international media begins to talk about Palestinian anger “against all sides,” as if Hamas were just one actor in a chaotic landscape, not the very regime responsible for decades of repression, mismanagement, and war.
Nothing happens in Gaza without Hamas's knowledge
This is not to say that the anger in Gaza isn’t real. It is. It has been simmering for years. Civilians are exhausted, displaced, starving. Entire neighborhoods have vanished. And in that desperation, some have found the courage to speak out.
But the reality of Hamas’s control over Gaza cannot be overstated. Nothing happens there without their knowledge. Spontaneous protests in the middle of a war zone, under the watchful eye of a paranoid regime? That is not how Gaza works. Not unless Hamas allows it – or engineers it.
We’ve seen the playbook before. In Iran, the regime has staged counterprotests to justify crackdowns. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s regime planted “protesters” to smoke out dissidents. In Russia, fake opposition is routinely used to confuse and control. Hamas has learned from these regimes.
It is no coincidence that as international scrutiny intensifies and pressure mounts over the failure to extend a ceasefire, Hamas suddenly becomes the target of public ire – just enough to distract, just enough to muddy the narrative, just enough to blame Israel or the West for everything falling apart.
And then there’s the digital theater. Many of the protest videos were circulated by accounts known to oppose Hamas – but how much of that opposition is real, and how much is staged? In an information war, what seems authentic is often artificial.
The protester with the microphone, the chants calling for Hamas to step down, the Facebook posts accusing the group of turning citizens into numbers – it all reads as powerful, until you realize it may be part of a script. A performance staged not for the people of Gaza, but for an international audience already struggling to make sense of an increasingly complex conflict.
If anything, this protest tells us less about Hamas’s weakness and more about its adaptability. This is not the behavior of a regime on the brink. It is the behavior of a regime that knows exactly how far it can go – how to allow just enough anger to vent before sealing the pressure valve shut.
The message sent to the people of Gaza was clear: We are still watching. And the message sent to the world was even more chilling: We control the narrative, even when it turns against us.
In the end, the voices of the protesters – however genuine – have been swallowed up by a broader, more cynical machine. Their pain is real, but it’s being packaged and sold by the very group they were trying to resist. In Gaza, dissent is not crushed in secret anymore. It is weaponized, staged, and televised. The revolution may not be televised, but the illusion of one absolutely is.
The writer, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx.