Report documents how Hamas controls the violent Gaza ‘Great March of Return’

Report documents how Hamas controls the violent Gaza ‘Great March of Return’

The so-called “Great March of Return” are the weekly riots at the Gaza-Israel border in which Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups mount operations to breach the border fence and attack Israelis under cover of civilians, including women and children.

As we have documented extensively, the “children” involved often are teenage military members of terrorist groups. The terrorist groups cynically use these teenagers and also civilian “protesters” for propaganda purposes when they are injured or killed.

As has been proven, over 80% of Palestinians killed during these riots were documented terror group members, and the percentage likely is much higher. Hamas members figure prominently among the dead, almost all of the several dozen killed during the massive border attack when the U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem.

[Image via Joe Truzman]

So what didn’t happen today that proves our point?

The best proof that the riots are not spontaneous or civilian is that nothing happened today, for the first Friday in almost a year.

Nothing happened because Hamas called off the “protests” to avoid escalation with Israel….

Like a spigot, Hamas turns the ‘protests’ on and off to fit its military and political objectives, and ramps up the violent intensity as needed.

It’s all a charade, a propaganda event. Deadly Pallywood.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose work documenting terrorist group membership has been linked by us before, has just released a report documenting how Hamas controls the border riots through an intermediary organizing group, Nature and Functioning of the Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege:

A year has passed since the return march project began. Preparations for the project began in early 2018 as an initiative of social activists and organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. In the early stages, when the idea was being formulated, the organizers of the march claimed that the events would not be of a political nature, that official representatives of the various organizations would not participate, and that there would be no violence. Hamas supported the idea of the marches, but preferred to remain behind the scenes in the initial preparation stage.

However, Hamas quickly took over the reins and took control of the return marches, even before the first march took place, on March 30, 2018. The longer the marches continued, the greater the importance attached to them by Hamas. This is because, in Hamas’s view, the marches enable it to achieve several goals: letting off steam by the Gazan public in particular, and the young people in particular, and diverting their feelings of frustration, which stem from the daily hardships, against Israel; obtaining financial and economic support for the Gaza Strip, which will alleviate the severe hardships prevailing there; lifting the siege from the Gaza Strip and opening the border crossings for free passage. Along with all this, at the hearts and minds level, raising awareness of the “refugee problem” and the refugees’ aspiration to return to their places of residence in Israel (hence the name of the marches: “the return marches”).

Despite the great importance that Hamas attaches to the march project, it initially preferred to avoid direct control over it and permitted, and in the ITIC’s assessment even encouraged, the establishment of a civilian leadership for the marches called the “Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege” (hereinafter: the Supreme National Authority or the National Authority). The existence of such an authority has many advantages for Hamas: The Authority obfuscates Hamas’s direct responsibility for the considerable violence that has been displayed during the marches; It enables it to mobilize most of the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip for the march project. It enables Hamas to have large sections of Gazan society participate in the march project, thereby ensuring its continuity; It also enables Hamas to demonstrate outwardly that the return marches enjoy broad popular support. In addition to all of the above, the very existence of the National Authority as a supreme entity that ostensibly operates the marches enables Hamas to divert the criticism that arose during the return marches to the National Authority[1].

The report then details how the Supreme National Authority that runs the Great March of Return is a collective of almost all the terror groups in Gaza as a means of Hamas appeasing other groups while still maintaining control:

The Supreme National Authority is composed of the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, including large organizations, small organizations, and even insignificant ones. It also includes representatives of institutions, social organizations, clans, refugee committees, and additional activists from all sectors of Gaza society. Moreover, in order to ensure the engagement in the march project of Hamas’s main rival organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas agreed to grant this organization extensive representation in the Supreme National Authority and the various Authority committees and to appoint PIJ senior operative Khaled al-Batsh as coordinator of the marches. Nevertheless, the PIJ has often stood out as a militant rogue organization that prefers to act according to its own considerations or according to the strategy of Iran, its sponsor, although it does pay lip service to the need for unity and coordinated action.

The full report is available in pdf.

You will not learn any of this in the mainstream international media, which has bought into the false narrative that the Great March of Return is a peaceful protest.

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