Hamza Howidy was a child when Hamas carried out its bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip from the PLO in 2006. By the time he was a student at the Islamic University, he had turned against the terrorist group’s repressive and kleptocratic policies:
Hamas has a no-tolerance policy for criticism or objections to any of its policies. Even discussion is forbidden. Any journalist who objects or criticizes a policy is suspended and investigated. Demonstrations are strictly prohibited. . . . The dirtiest tool Hamas uses to silence citizens is character assassination through online campaigns accusing dissenters of working for hostile bodies or committing immoral acts. Hamas also routinely breaks into the homes of people deemed disloyal and humiliates them in front of their family and neighbors. . . .
[A]s Hamas’s oppression of the Palestinian citizens of Gaza increased, the quality of life deteriorated. . . . A huge social gap opened between the wealthy elite who belong to Hamas and the rest of the population who were increasingly living in grinding poverty.
Howidy joined the 2019 protest movement in Gaza, and was soon arrested:
I will never forget my first day in jail—walking up the steps listening to screams of my colleagues, most of them fellow students, who had been arrested before me. I was held under arrest for 21 days and subjected to various types of torture. I was beaten with batons and sprayed with cold water in the late winter-night hours.
Read more on Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-tortured-me-dissent-heres-what-they-really-think-palestinians-opinion-1857169