Mum in Brighton

Not a week passes without Hamas abducting Palestinian civilians in Gaza and subjecting them to torture, beatings, deprivation, intimidation, isolation, and threats of execution. Many cases never surface because families stay silent, hoping to appease the group and protect their sons and daughters. Yesterday, Hamas kidnapped Ahmed Hilles, a well‑known young Gazan committed to a future beyond the group’s terroristic rule. He has been the subject of incitement by vicious arms of Hamas, including the Belgium-stationed counterintelligence social media-based network called “To catch a spy,” run by the fraudulent Hamas double agent who received political asylum in Belgium, Mohammed Othman. Last week Hamas abducted Eyad (Abu Hammam) Jundeya, an anti‑Hamas Gazan who had criticized Hamas‑aligned merchants for gouging prices to cover the group’s taxes. He disappeared for more than a week and was released showing clear signs of torture, then warned never again to speak on social media about Hamas or anything happening in Gaza. Hamas’s internal security also went after a friend of mine, previously arrested and tortured, summoning him yet again and threatening that he is out of chances if he posts anything critical of the group or its rule. I’ve spent days mapping where Hamas drags people for industrial‑scale interrogation, intimidation, torture, beatings, and execution threats. One site is steps from my childhood home in Gaza City, the el‑Yarmouk football stadium area in northern Rimal, between Sheikh Radwan and downtown. Hamas also uses abandoned or partially damaged houses and buildings across Gaza, including near Shujaiyya, Jabaliya, Sheikh Radwan, el‑Saha, Zeitoun, and Tal al‑Hawa. Through direct and indirect channels, I asked people with close contact to the Israeli military whether they knew about the sites Hamas uses for internal security and counterintelligence operations against Gazans. I inquired specifically if the military was aware of where Hamas takes civilians to be interrogated, tortured, beaten, jailed, and threatened by its various security services. I received broadly consistent answers: 1. Yes, the Israeli military generally knows where Hamas operates, including sites in partially destroyed structures, makeshift centers, medical facilities, displacement areas, and private homes. 2. The military does not have standing orders to target all Hamas police or rank‑and‑file militants. 3. Current priorities focus on eliminating those involved in October 7 and senior figures in Hamas’s military leadership. 4. The IDF will strike Hamas targets of any level if they credibly appear, through intelligence or observation, to be preparing attacks against Israel or IDF forces inside Gaza. 5. Because the ceasefire restricts major offensive operations, the IDF prioritizes Hamas targets according to Israel’s national security interests, not what might be most helpful or necessary for Gaza’s civilian population. If the Israeli military is understandably ill-positioned to counter Hamas’s internal terror apparatus against Palestinians in Gaza, then who is? Will it fall to the incoming NCAG-led Gaza police force and the International Stabilization Force under the Board of Peace? Could the UN do it? The Palestinian Authority? An armed uprising? A new regional or international coalition of the willing? And if the transitional process becomes excruciatingly slow and overly complex, will the international community tolerate a Jihadi‑fascist‑Islamist organization holding two million people hostage in 1/3rd of Gaza with no real horizon for Gazans to be freed from Hamas’s grip?