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Hamas is a criminal gang masquerading as a “resistance” movement. Its four most senior leaders — Mousa Abu Marzouk, the late Ismael Haniyeh, Khaled Meshaal, and the late Yahya Sinwar — between them stole $14 billion that was supposed to pay for aid intended for all the people of Gaza. The group rules by fear, and if anyone dares to speak out against it, that person will at least be severely beaten, and imprisoned, and at most, be savagely tortured and then murdered. Recently there have been anti-Hamas demonstrations; the most spectacular one was in Beit Lahiya, where several thousand Gazans, in despair at their situation and feeling they had nothing to lose, gathered to shout “Out, Out, Hamas!” What happens to those in Gaza who oppose the group’s continued rule, and speak out? Nothing good. More on the fate of Odai al-Rabei, who recently dared to express publicly his anger with Hamas, can be found here: “Palestinian dissident abducted, tortured, and killed by Hamas in Gaza,” by Ohad Merlin, Jerusalem Post, March 30, 2025:
Odai al-Rabei, a 22-year-old Gazan, was abducted, tortured, and murdered by al-Qassam [Izz al-Din Brigade, part of the military wing of Hamas] terrorists, as per Rabei’s family. Some reports even said his body was dragged in the streets until it was finally returned to the family home….
Dragging corpses through the streets, tied to the back of a vehicle or placed instead on a hood, is something the Arabs like to do. Think of the wounded and dead Israelis who were brought into Gaza on flatbed trucks on October 7, 2023, so that ordinary Gazans could hit them with sticks and shoes as they passed by. Perhaps the most famous example of this was in Iraq in 1958, after the coup by Brigadier Qassem and Colonel Arif against the monarchy of King Feisal II. The strongman of the regime that they overturned Nuri el-Said, tried to escape from Baghdad dressed as a woman, but he was found, castrated, the body hacked to pieces. His mutilated corpse was buried, but then an angry mob dug it up a day later, attached it to a vehicle, and dragged it through the streets of Baghdad so everyone could enjoy the spectacle. The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s corpse was thrown on the hood of a pickup and driven through the streets of Sirte, so that everyone could see that he, the monster who had held the country in thrall for four decades, was well and truly dead. In the case of Odai al-Rabei, his body was dragged through the streets as a warning to the people of Gaza: this is what happens when you dare to criticize Hamas.
Videos circulated showing graphic images of Rabei’s body, which appeared to have been mutilated all over, indicating he was tortured. Other videos showed Rabei’s funeral procession held in Gaza on Sunday, in which thousands of participants declared in rage: “In spirit and blood we’ll redeem you, Odai!” “Allahu akbar,” as well as “Out, out, out! Hamas out!”…
It was at the funeral for Odai al-Rabei that the anger against Hamas welled up even more — the violent protest against Hamas had already begun in Beit Lahiya — and helped that protest spread to a half-dozen other cities in Gaza.
Rabei’s family called for “these unjust criminals who unjustly killed this Muslim” to be dealt with an “iron fist,” adding they would have no consolation until revenge is taken on the killers.
They further stressed: “Odai fasted Ramadan, he prayed, and he read the Quran… We call on all human rights organizations and institutions to stand in support of the people of Gaza against these criminals. O Allah, take revenge.”…
The family wants the world to know that their son, Odai al-Rabei, was a good Muslim. He fasted on Ramadan, he prayed, he read the Qur’an. That makes his murder even more unacceptable in the eyes of the Gazans who are under Hamas rule.
At the same time, Hamas loyalists on social media refused to lament Rabei’s killing, accusing him of treason….
“The resistance does not kill anyone without a reason… If you know you know…,” said another one, while a third one added, “The resistance kills only Zionists and traitors.”
The “resistance” also kills a third category of victim: anyone who dares to criticize Hamas.
A fourth commenter said: “Certainly, he was a spy and an agent, and because of him many were martyred due to the information he gave to the Zionists,” while a fifth one said: “Just another dead one from Fatah like all others.”
So the Gazans are being told that al-Rabei was both a “Zionist spy” and a member of Fatah, the armed faction under the control of the Palestinian Authority, that lost out to Hamas in the election to rule Gaza; hundreds of Fatah members in Gaza were murdered by Hamas in 2007.
The torture and death and dragging through the streets of the corpse of that “good Muslim” Odai al-Rabei may lead to his becoming the symbol of the real “resistance” in Gaza. That “resistance” is not to Israel, which had pulled out completely from Gaza in 2005, but to the terror group Hamas, that has stolen billions from, and enslaved, and caused the immiseration, of the desperate people of Gaza.
