Gaza runs red: Hamas’s bloody purge

In the choking aftermath of the latest ceasefire, Gaza has been transformed into a public execution ground. Masked Hamas gunmen drag hooded Palestinians into open squares, force them to kneel, and shoot them in cold blood. Hamas now functions as judge, jury, and executioner – erasing anyone labeled a traitor, informant, or collaborator with chilling impunity.

One horrifying video, traced to Gaza City’s Sabra district and verified by ABC News, shows blindfolded men forced to their knees and then shot point-blank in full view of an assembled crowd. The footage was broadcast across Hamas-linked Telegram channels, accompanied by brazen captions: “death sentences for collaborators and lawbreakers.” The executioners wore the signature green headbands of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Multiple eyewitnesses and open-source geolocation confirm Sabra as the killing site.

From one end of Gaza to the other, the purge continues. The crackdown has claimed at least 33 lives since the ceasefire, according to Reuters. Hamas officially frames the executions as part of an internal “cleanse” of gangs, rivals, and collaborators. In public squares, masked gunmen have been seen executing eight men at once, kneeling, blindfolded, before crowds chanting “Allahu akbar.”

Outside Al-Shifa Hospital, three men were gunned down and left for dead – accused (without due process) of anti-Hamas activity. Others associated with the Doghmush clan or the so-called “clan militias” (some of which had prior ties to Israel’s intelligence) are being hunted one by one as Hamas reasserts power.

These killings are carried out by Hamas’s Deterrence Force – a paramilitary death squad whose sole mission is loyalty enforcement. This is not justice. It is raw dominance through terror, a mechanism to paralyze Gaza’s populace into mute obedience.

When Israel withdrew from certain sectors as part of its hostage-recovery mission, it left behind a frail web of collaborators: members of the Doghmush clan, holdovers from the Preventive Security Force, and fighters from factions such as the al-Amour or Abu Rish groups. Many had secretly aided Israeli intelligence by sharing information on Hamas positions. When the IDF receded, these intermediaries were abandoned, left exposed and vulnerable. Now Hamas is methodically picking them off.

From a purely tactical view, Israel’s withdrawal may have made sense. Morally, it is a tragedy. Those who cooperated – many by choice – were cast aside. They have become sacrificial tokens of “necessity” in a chessboard of death.

That said, where is the left-wing moral chorus? The same voices that demand “justice for Gaza” whenever Israel fires a missile targeting terrorist infrastructure vanish when Hamas pulls the trigger. To defend “Palestinian rights” only when Israel is “the villain” – but stay silent when Hamas executes its own – is not neutrality. It is intellectual rot. Hypocrisy carved into flesh.

This spate of executions unmasks Hamas’s doctrine: it will never self-disarm, never enter power-sharing, never concede control. Its rule is our abyss. These public killings are not signs of regime collapse – they are its overt declaration: obey or disappear. Loyalty will be enforced. Dissent will be expunged.

The depravity runs deeper still.

Leaked documents and multiple journalistic investigations reveal that Hamas has tortured and executed its own members – accusing them of homosexuality, moral “deviations,” or flirtations on social media. These documents show that 94 Hamas recruits between 2012 and 2019 were flagged under a “morality check” regime, for “homosexual conversations,” “flirting without legal relationship,” and “sodomy,” among vague charges.

One indisputable case: Mahmoud Ishtiwi, once a prominent Hamas commander, was summarily executed in 2016 after being accused of homosexual behavior and other “moral violations.” His death was the subject of secret Hamas internal files found by the Israeli military.

Imagine it: A regime lionized by Western progressives as a “liberation force” tortures and kills gay Palestinians, while those same progressives brand Israel as the sole oppressor. Rainbow flags and clever hashtags are erected in silent acquiescence to genocide in the name of solidarity. Their silence in the face of brutal internal purges is not empathy – it is complicity.

The Left roars when Israel acts; when Hamas murders its own, it goes mute. That silence is not neutrality – it is surrender to bloodlust.

Nevertheless, this savagery is nothing new. In 2006, Hamas flung Fatah rivals off rooftops during Gaza’s internecine civil strife. In 2012 and 2014, it paraded corpses through the streets, draping signs reading “spy.” Accusations of summary executions in 2014 placed at least 21 Gazans killed in extrajudicial “collaboration” purges in Gaza City alone.

The current execution wave is not aberrant. It is the raw essence of Hamas laid bare. Any proposition of “peace” or “ceasefire” that overlooks this internal terror is a lie dressed as diplomacy.

True justice for Palestinians begins with ending Hamas’s dictatorship of death – because when a movement murders its own people to preserve power, it ceases being a liberation struggle and becomes a cult of control.