The long-brewing discontent among Gazans living under the yoke of the Islamist terrorist group was magnified in recent weeks by power shortages that left residents with only a few hours of electricity a day, the report said.
“Where is the electricity and where is the gas?” the protesters chanted at a refugee camp, repeating the refrain of “for shame. For shame.”
Footage showed protesters torching Hamas flags and denouncing Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.
However, local sources told i24NEWS that the volume of the protests appeared to be overstated in some of the reports on social media and in Israeli outlets, as well as that at least one of the protests was fueled first and foremost by grievances against local authorities.
The tensions in the Hamas-ruled territory came amid efforts to effect a reconciliation between the terrorist group and Abbas’ Fatah faction.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas violently took control of Gaza in a bloody coup.
A unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed in 2015 when Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides.
Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement in October of 2017, as part of which Hamas was to transfer power in Gaza by December 1 of that year.
That deadline was initially put back by 10 days and later reportedly hit “obstacles”. It has never been implemented.
Last week, Hamas agreed to participate in a meeting of faction leaders in Egypt. The group agreed to the summit after PA security forces released a senior Hamas official who had been arrested on charges of slandering Palestinian Arab officials.
Abbas and Haniyeh met in Cairo on Sunday as part of the summit, brokered by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
