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January 22, 2025 Special Dispatch No. 11791

Palestinian Journalist: There Is Great Similarity Between Hamas' Barbaric Rule In Gaza And The Deposed Assad Regime In Syria

January 22, 2025
Syria, Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 11791

In a December 17, 2024 article titled "Sednaya [Prison] and Gaza's Prisons – Two Sides of the Same Coin," Palestinian journalist Abd Al-Bari Fayyad wrote that there is great similarity between the barbarity employed by Hamas against its opponents and the horrific torture methods that were employed by the ousted Syrian regime against its opponents in Sednaya prison. According to Fayyad, Hamas brutally tortures Gazans who criticize it and criticize the massacre it carried out on October 7, 2023, which brought disaster upon the people of the Gaza Strip. It does so out of a sense of inferiority and in a desperate attempt to demonstrate that it still controls the Gaza Strip, Fayyad said.


Abd Al-Bari Fayyad (Image: alwasattoday.com)

The following are translated excerpts from Fayyad's article:[1]

"Those incarcerated in [Syria's] Sednaya prison – infamous for the torture and barbaric acts [carried out in it] during the reign of the deposed Syrian regime – emerged from the dungeons into the light, returned to their homes, and the weeping preceded the embraces. They have nightmares about the curses of the prison guards, and when they wake up they still struggle to believe they are free. Most of them do not [even] know what they were accused of or why they were arrested, but their testimonies all prove that they endured unbearable barbarism.

"Amid our joy over the liberation of the people of Syria, we discovered a series of videos [that showed] Palestinians in Hamas's prisons being tortured with the same barbarity that was employed by the Assad regime before its downfall... Looking at both sides, we find a chilling resemblance between the Assad regime in Syria and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Despite Hamas' claim that it cares about the people [of Gaza], the facts show that the opposite is true. Hamas' behavior proves that it is disconnected from reality, living on another planet, as if the daily massacres [in Gaza] are none of its concern. Hamas breaks limbs, causes pain and inflicts suffering on those [Gazans] whom the occupation has not harmed. Furthermore, Hamas and its media have many pre-prepared accusations [that they bring against people] to justify this barbarity, which cannot be justified.

"One of the videos shows Hamas members brutally  torturing a resident [of Gaza] due to opposition [voiced by] residents and activists and after they demonstrated against Hamas's positions and against the October 7 attack, which caused the destruction of the Gaza Strip, the death of 45,000 Palestinians and the wounding of 70,000… The [Hamas] movement also kidnapped five people who accused it of causing the war in Gaza and its subsequent reoccupation [by Israel]...

"What caught my attention were statements made in one of the videos by a Palestinian who said that Hamas members tried to break his fingers so that he would no longer be able to write criticism against the movement and its actions on October 7... [2]

"Historically, Hamas has a record of violence against its political rivals in Gaza. It sends masked gunmen to murder them, cripple them and arrest them. It has executed, tortured and targeted [them] without a trial… That is exactly what the Bashar Al-Assad regime used to do. There is great similarity between the two regimes, although the tortured [victims] are different.

"There is just one explanation for Hamas' [practice of] torturing, persecuting and breaking the limbs of anyone who dares to criticize it, namely its sense of inferiority and its desperate attempt to show that it controls everything in Gaza, as though its latest escapade [i.e., the October 7 attack] did not affect it at all. That is why it will continue to insist on maintaining its rule despite the broken nose of the Palestinian people."

 

[1] Elaph.com, December 17, 2024; Al-Arab (London), December 19, 2024.

[2] The reference is to Amin Abed, an anti-Hamas activist who has been organizing protests against the movement since before the current war. He testified that masked gunmen had beaten him and called him a "traitor" and "collaborator" for voicing opposition to Hamas' October 7 attack. See bbc.com/Arabic, July 10, 2024; majalla.com, July 18, 2024.

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