Hundreds of Palestinians took to streets across the Gaza Strip on Friday in the first organized anti-Hamas protest since the spring and summer 2025 wave, carrying handwritten signs reading “God willing, Hamas out” and “We want to live” as footage of the demonstrations circulated on social media. The protests, organized under the banner of the June 26 Revolution, unfolded after days of explicit warnings from Hamas operatives against anyone considering taking part. Gaza-based journalists told news outlets that Hamas had ordered them not to cover the events.
The demonstrations mark a return to public defiance for Gazans who braved beatings and arrest threats in the earlier wave, which ran from March through August 2025. They also land in the middle of a stalled ceasefire process; under a US-brokered 20-point plan, Hamas was to disarm and hand over power to a transitional authority, a step the group has so far refused to take. Footage posted on Friday by activist Ihab Hassan and Gaza-born journalist Hamza al-Masri showed crowds in at least Khan Younis. Gaza’s major local outlets, all affiliated with Hamas, did not air any of it.
What the Crowds Carried and Chanted
Filmed demonstrations on Friday showed protesters in multiple Gaza locations holding signs that read “God willing, Hamas out,” “We are not pawns,” and “We want to live,” the Times of Israel reported from its liveblog of the day’s events. In one video, a crowd could be heard chanting “Enough with the destruction,” with the banner posted alongside the footage by Gaza-born journalist Hamza al-Masri reading “Gaza, the pulsating voice.”
Activist Ihab Hassan posted a separate clip on Friday captioned “BREAKING: Anti-Hamas protests have started in the Gaza Strip – this one from Khan Younis.” The Times of Israel reported that the protests took place in multiple locations across the Strip, though it said the exact sites beyond Khan Younis were unclear. Several sign-holders could be seen walking through what looked like damaged residential streets in the posted footage. None of the videos, by Friday evening, were being aired inside Gaza.
The Facebook page behind the campaign had called for demonstrations at 18 different locations across the Strip, suggesting organizers were attempting to spread the action widely to limit any single point of suppression. The Times of Israel’s liveblog noted that the demonstrations appeared in multiple locations, though it stopped short of naming each one. The footage that did surface was filmed and posted almost entirely by journalists and activists based outside the Strip.
Who Organized the June 26 Revolution
The campaign took shape across June, built from Cairo, Germany, Turkey and a thin layer of contacts inside Gaza. Abdel Hamid Abdel Ati, a Gaza-born journalist now in Cairo with his three daughters after fleeing the war, is the public face of the movement; his Facebook post calling for demonstrations went up two minutes before the first post on the June 26 Revolution page on June 8, 2026. “The movement is not against anyone,” Abdel Ati told Asharq Al-Awsat. “It is for the public interest and to save what can be saved from a reality that weighs heavily on the people of Gaza.”
On June 13, Abdel Ati publicly withdrew after death threats against his family, then reversed course within hours under pressure from supporters inside the Strip. “We continue for the sake of our people’s dreams,” he said at the time. “Intimidation is not going to bring results.” The broader network includes Hamza al-Huwaiti, who participated in the 2019 anti-Hamas protests before leaving for Germany in 2023, and Amjad Abu Kush, a Gaza-based activist who has called the campaign “the right of Gazans to end Hamas’s rule.” Most of the public organizers, Abdel Ati included, now live outside the Strip.
The movement is not against anyone. It is for the public interest and to save what can be saved from a reality that weighs heavily on the people of Gaza.
Abdel Ati told the the June 26 Revolution profile with organizer quotes that Hamas and its supporters had accused him and other organizers abroad of serving foreign agendas, an accusation he called an attempt to dodge the real issue. He gave a fuller account of the threats and his decision to reverse his withdrawal in Abdel Ati’s account of the threats and his reversal.
Hamas’s Pre-Protest Crackdown
Hamas moved against the planned protests before they reached the streets. Israeli broadcaster N12 reported on Friday that Hamas had summoned at least 100 suspected activists to command centers, reportedly operating inside hospitals, for interrogation and explicit threats of harm against anyone who joined the demonstrations. Preachers in mosques across the Strip used Friday sermons the week before to discourage participation, telling congregations such protests were religiously forbidden without naming the planned June 26 action. The organizing details behind the June 26 protests describe how the warning inside Gaza was that anyone seen taking part would be identified and held accountable afterward.
Hamas also reached organizers abroad. Al-Huwaiti said Hamas issued covert threats against families of activists outside Gaza whose relatives remain inside, including Abdel Ati’s father. Hamza al-Masri, the Gaza-born journalist now based in Turkey, released a video on Wednesday claiming he had received death threats from Hamas leadership and reading what he called “a sort of will” on camera.
On the official side, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem accused those calling for protests of “rushing the fall of our great movement, relying on the promises of a stupid enemy.” Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Hamas security services had been ordered to remain on alert during the day but to intervene only when necessary, in a way that protects personnel from Israeli attacks, which have repeatedly targeted Hamas police in recent weeks. The arrangement suggests Hamas was wary of giving Israeli drones a clear target while the world’s attention was fixed on the protest movement. It also means the visible street enforcement on Friday, where it happened, was deliberate rather than improvised.
A UN report cited by the Times of Israel found that Hamas internal security bodies killed at least 60 civilians in Gaza during 2024 and 2025 for alleged collaboration or threats to Hamas rule, an indicator of how the group has handled dissent in the past. The two named units, the Sahm Unit and the Radaa Force, operate behind the scenes rather than in uniform. Whether they operated on Friday, and against whom, remains undisclosed by either Hamas or any inside source willing to speak on the record.
Key numbers from the run-up to the protests:
- 18: demonstration sites called for by the June 26 Revolution Facebook page
- 100: activists summoned to Hamas command centers, per N12
- 60: civilians killed by Hamas internal security in 2024-2025, per a UN report
- About 2 million: Gaza residents, with tens of thousands in Hamas’s military wing
A Media Blackout Inside Gaza
Footage of Friday’s protests reached the public almost entirely through journalists and activists based outside Gaza. None of Gaza’s major local outlets, all affiliated with Hamas, aired the demonstrations. The June 26 Revolution Facebook page documented the unusual scene by posting footage of a journalist broadcasting from a nearby rooftop with his camera pointed elsewhere, ignoring the protest below him.
This was a deliberate effort to keep the protests invisible to a local audience. A Gaza-based journalist told the Times of Israel that Hamas had warned reporters in Gaza not to cover the planned demonstration; the journalist spoke on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety. Without local coverage, the protests’ existence for anyone inside Gaza depends largely on word of mouth and on social media posts that residents can access if they have a working connection. Inside Gaza, more than 60 percent of the territory remains under Israeli military control, with Hamas governing the rest, leaving reporters with shrinking ground to stand on. The blackout mirrors what happened during the March 2025 wave, when Israeli and international outlets posted protest footage within hours while Gaza-based outlets did not carry it.
Why Gazans say they are taking to the streets reported that the wartime pattern of restraint by Hamas security forces on the streets was aimed at avoiding both Israeli drone strikes on its security personnel and bad international headlines. Al-Huwaiti, the German-based organizer, said Hamas “largely refrained” from open street violence during the wartime protests because that “is the last thing they want the world to see.” That restraint does not extend to the press; the threats to reporters came alongside the threats to anyone seen walking toward a protest site. For a reader inside Gaza, the result is a kind of mirror blackout: a major public event that, on local screens, never happened.
Echoes of 2025 and 2019
Friday’s protests follow a near-identical pattern set in March 2025, when several hundred Palestinians in Beit Lahia and across northern Gaza staged the largest anti-Hamas demonstrations in years under the slogan “We want to live.” That wave, which ran from March through August 2025, drew crowds chanting “We refuse to die,” “End the war,” and “Our children’s blood is not cheap,” and included explicit calls for Hamas to step down. Hamas handled that wave by refusing to publicly confront protesters in the streets, a strategy analysts said was aimed at avoiding both Israeli drone strikes on its security forces and bad international headlines. Behind the scenes, its Sahm Unit and Radaa Force continued targeting suspected collaborators and dissenters. A UN report cited by the Times of Israel found that those units killed at least 60 civilians in Gaza during 2024 and 2025.
Earlier waves in 2017 and 2019 ended differently. In 2019, Hamas police and security units beat and arrested demonstrators openly, putting down protests that began as economic grievances before broadening into direct anti-Hamas chants. On June 18, 2026, several dozen Palestinians gathered outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to protest the lack of treatment for the war-wounded, an early flashpoint that the June 26 Revolution Facebook page promoted as a precursor. The June 26 Facebook page itself only went live on June 8, leaving organizers roughly two and a half weeks to recruit, signal, and prepare.
A timeline of anti-Hamas protest waves inside Gaza:
- 2017 and 2019: short-lived protest waves over economic conditions, broken up by Hamas police with arrests and beatings
- March to August 2025: months of protests across northern and central Gaza demanding Hamas step down
- June 8, 2026: the June 26 Revolution Facebook page launches
- June 18, 2026: several dozen people protest outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis
- June 26, 2026: coordinated protests called across 18 sites
What the Protesters Are Demanding
The June 26 Revolution’s public statements are explicit about what they want. Organizers released three core demands: an end to displacement and tent life, a dignified standard of living, and accountable government in Gaza. In statements issued before the protest, organizers wrote that “the people are the ones required to act” and that “we refuse to have our dignity violated or to be humiliated by standing in bread lines.” The campaign has also framed itself in terms that reject outside sponsorship; al-Huwaiti told the Times of Israel that the protest “is not supported by any country, nor by the army [the IDF] or any militia.” The line is meant to undercut Hamas’s main counter-narrative that the organizers are foreign agents.
Other points from the campaign and its supporters:
- “Free yourselves from slavery and injustice. Demonstrate for the sake of your children and the dignity that was taken away from you,” one Palestinian told organizers, according to the Jerusalem Post.
- “Hamas is finished,” another said, urging Gaza residents to join the protests set for the end of June.
- “We reject the continuation of this war. It needs to end,” Abdel Ati told the Jerusalem Post in his June 13 interview.
In a statement on June 11, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem framed these demands as driven by Israel rather than by Palestinian citizens, a position organizers including Abdel Ati reject. Abdel Ati told the Jerusalem Post that “an entire people has been punished because of the reckless gamble of one organization,” a direct reference to Hamas. The campaign’s most concrete end-state is a transfer of power in Gaza; the US-brokered 20-point plan, in the version Hamas agreed to last year, would move governance to a transitional authority once Hamas disarms. Hamas has so far refused to disarm, which is what puts the question of who governs Gaza back on the street. The campaign’s pre-protest demands and Abdel Ati’s interview lay out the full text of those statements.
How Far Could the Movement Go
Dr. Harel Chorev, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center, has tracked Gaza protest cycles since the war began. He told the Times of Israel in March 2025 that even short-lived waves had lasting social effects because “once Hamas’s image is damaged, it loses that hold.” For now, the June 26 campaign’s strength on the ground is harder to gauge than its reach online; the Times of Israel reported that residents and analysts inside the Strip warned that fear of retaliation and the daily struggle for survival may suppress turnout even when support is broad. Gaza’s roughly two million residents, with tens of thousands serving in Hamas’s military wing, face a turnout math that no organizer inside the Strip is willing to put on the record. Whether the protests become a wave or a single Friday will likely be known within days.
Chorev has argued that Hamas may be unable to sustain its grip if internal recruitment drains and the aid blockade holds, conditions that have not changed since the last protest wave ended. The post-war framework remains in flux: the Board of Peace weighing alternatives to the 20-point plan and Hamas’s Cairo push to salvage the ceasefire show the international and negotiating tracks are still moving in parallel. The protests’ impact will depend on whether they spread beyond Friday and whether any visible cracks appear in Hamas’s enforcement apparatus. None of those questions can be answered from outside the Strip, and none of the people inside it who could answer them are speaking on the record.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is this the first organized anti-Hamas protest in Gaza since the 2025 wave?
The previous organized wave ran from March through August 2025, with demonstrators in Beit Lahia, Jabalia, and Gaza City calling for Hamas to step down. After that wave dissipated, Gaza-based activists said Hamas warned residents against renewed public dissent, and journalists inside Gaza said they were told not to cover any new protest activity. The June 26 Revolution page only went live on June 8, 2026, leaving eighteen days between the campaign’s public launch and Friday’s coordinated action.
What is the June 26 Revolution?
It is the name adopted by the organizers of the June 26, 2026 protests, taken from the date set for the demonstrations. The campaign was launched on June 8, 2026, through a Facebook page under the same name. Most of the public organizers live outside Gaza, in Cairo, Germany, and Turkey, after leaving the Strip during or before the war.
Who is Abdel Hamid Abdel Ati?
He is a Gaza-born Palestinian journalist now based in Cairo with his three daughters after fleeing the war. He is the public face of the June 26 Revolution. Abdel Ati has used Facebook and TikTok to criticize conditions in Gaza for years and was reportedly the first to call for a coordinated protest against Hamas on June 26.
Why is Hamas-affiliated media not covering the protests?
A Gaza-based journalist told the Times of Israel that Hamas warned reporters in Gaza not to cover the planned demonstration. None of Gaza’s major outlets aired the June 26 footage; it circulated instead through activists and journalists based outside the Strip. The blackout mirrors the approach Hamas took during the March 2025 protest wave, when local outlets stayed silent while footage moved on Israeli and international channels.
