The IDF Southern Command is preparing for violent demonstrations and riots along the Gaza Strip’s Yellow Line this coming Friday, Walla. learned on Wednesday.
The preparations began after word spread in recent weeks that Arabic-language social media pages identified with Fatah had launched a campaign calling for protests against Hamas on Friday.
Various Palestinian spokesmen said the protest was focused on the harsh living conditions in the Gaza Strip, but also on the delay in advancing the second phase of the agreement, which includes rebuilding homes and infrastructure and ending the fighting, while placing the blame on Hamas’s leadership.
A repeat of the unrest at the fence, only without a fence. Senior Hamas figures identified the campaign against them, some of it being run by Fatah activists from the West Bank, and acted on two fronts.
The first was the execution of collaborators, involving public violence and abuse, to deter the public from rising up. The second was the launch of a counter-campaign, encouraging calls to hold demonstrations in the Gaza Strip against Israel, and even against US envoy to the peace government Nikolai Maladinov, because of the failure of talks between Hamas and the US mediated by him.
In the past, Hamas used the same method of killing and abusing Palestinians. Trump warned Hamas against doing so, and the terror group stopped. But now, because the Gaza Strip is no longer a focus for the White House, Hamas security mechanisms are operating without fear.
IDF estimates that Hamas will push Gazan protests near Yellow Line
According to assessments in Southern Command, the most likely scenario is that Hamas will try to push the protests from the center of Gaza City toward the Yellow Line, only this time, unlike 2017 to 2019, there is no fence.
According to military officials, the campaign is receiving broad attention on social media and is also becoming part of public discourse among residents of Gaza, unlike previous campaigns.
Military officials said they are not yet able to assess the public response to the demonstrations, but said that over the past month, there have been friction incidents on the Yellow Line, and IDF forces have not rushed to open fire because they feared the people involved were civilians.
“The sequence of events is reminiscent of the events in 2017,” said a military source from Southern Command.
“Sinwar led the internal protests against Hamas toward the fence in order to exhaust the IDF, get it used to friction, and lead the political leadership in Jerusalem to an arrangement.” As a result, the IDF intends to reinforce forces in line with the situation assessment.