While terror leaders and their families scurry out of the Strip for lavish villas abroad, Gazans are left as hostages of Hamas’ “ransom project.”
By United with Israel Staff
Residents of the Gaza Strip recently discovered via an Egyptian announcement that family members of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh are jumping ship to live in Turkey.
Among the names disclosed by Egyptian authorities was Hazem Haniyeh, the son of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and his wife Inas and children.
According to a report by TPS‘ Arab Affairs’ specialist, Baruch Yedid, the news was met with anger and scorn by some Gazans, many of whom are still fuming over the Hamas leader himself scurrying out of Gaza two years ago.
Haniyeh exited Gaza for the funeral of Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike at the Baghdad airport in January 2020. In December 2021, now-retired IDF Maj. Gen. Tamir Heyman confirmed Israel’s involvement in the operation, referring to the elimination of Soleimani among “two significant and important assassinations during [his] term” as head of IDF intelligence.
After leaving for Soleimani’s funeral, Haniyeh “disappeared in the hotels of Qatar and Turkey,” reported TPS, quoting an official in the Gaza Strip, with his wife joining him subsequently.
‘White Hands’
Moves such as this have raised the ire of Gaza residents.
“Social activists began to spread a campaign on social media with the hashtag ‘White Hands,'” said the TPS report. “As part of the campaign, protestors wave a hand with a black glove on it with the caption ‘our hands are white,’ to mock the words of Haniyeh, who said many times that his hands are free of corruption and Palestinian blood.”
The campaign reflects Gazans’ fury at terror bosses for choosing “the hotels and villas of Doha and Istanbul” over “liv[ing] in Gaza in luxury.”
One commenter quoted by TPS said Hamas bosses have relegated Gazans to the status of “hostages” in a “ransom project,” referring to the Palestinian strategy of milking donations and financial support from allies abroad on the back of the so-called “poverty, lack, hunger, and need” back home.
Corruption runs rampant among the Palestinian powers-that-be, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The 87-year-old dictator is currently serving in the seventeenth year of the four-year term he was elected to. Abbas lives high on the hog, in addition to wasting foreign aid on the PA’s pay-for-slay policy, which provides terrorists and their families lifetime salaries for murdering Israeli civilians.
Among the activists quoted by TPS was an individual who blasted Hamas leadership, saying that they “stole the donations of the Gulf countries and their accounts in Turkey swelled,” adding that “their children study abroad at the expense of [those in] Gaza, under the gang of Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, the allies of Iran and the Houthis.”
Among the Hamas leaders who moved to Qatar are Deputy Leader of Hamas in Gaza Khalil al Haya, Salah Bardawil, Sami Abu Zohri, and Taher Al-Nono, advisor to Haniyeh. Islamic Jihad terror leaders have also left Gaza, including Sheikh Nafz Azzam and Muhammad Alohindi.
While the former who moved to Lebanon, the latter is in Turkey.
In the past, when Hamas’ vast corruption was exposed, Gazans protested and were met with vicious force from the terror group.