The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) on Monday publicized a series of videos of what it said were “Hamas operatives abusing, assaulting, and shooting at Gaza residents.”
COGAT published the videos as Israel and Hamas compete over the global narrative on Gaza. The terrorist organization is trying to emphasize food-insecurity issues, convincing the UN to label them as “famine.” Jerusalem is trying to remind the world that many Gazans view themselves as prisoners under the authoritarian rule of Hamas.
Calling Hamas “the embodiment of evil and unrestrained cruelty – to preserve its bloody rule,” the videos released by COGAT mostly show extensive beatings of tied-up men lying on the ground, some with their eyes blindfolded, crying out in pain from being struck with hard objects or from being kicked.
The grainy videos also show some gunshots aimed at the people being taped.
COGAT Commander Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressing the international community on COGAT’s English X/Twitter page, wrote: “Hamas embodies the essence of evil. The shocking footage illustrates how the terrorist organization Hamas oppresses the population, abuses civilians, and uses unrestrained violence against people in order to maintain its bloody rule and consolidate its power.
“Hamas once again proves that it does not represent the residents of Gaza – it rules over them with force, fear, and cruelty.”
Hamas's brutality against Gazan civilians
Hamas does not deny that it beats and kills Gazans, creating many of these kinds of videos and disseminating them to spread fear among the population – especially fear of cooperating with Israel and any authority that is not Hamas.
Over the years, Hamas has frequently beaten and killed Gazans affiliated with the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah movement, Hamas’s rival, which governs the West Bank and governed Gaza until Hamas carried out a coup in 2007.
Hamas usually tries to portray those being beaten or killed as collaborators or traitors with Israel in an effort to avoid drawing attention to its own focus on simply maintaining power.
Hamas is defined by most Western countries as a terrorist group, especially after the October 7 massacre.
The sympathy of Western countries with Gazans’ food-insecurity issues, which are partly caused by Hamas, has shifted far greater attention lately to criticizing Israel’s policies regarding managing the flow of humanitarian aid and trying to cut Hamas’s control of food aid.