Palestinian journalists are at the top of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas hit-list in the crackdown occurring alongside preparations for the Palestinian local and municipal elections, scheduled for October 8.

The crackdown is part of an ongoing campaign by the two rival parties to silence critics in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Neither Hamas nor the PA tolerates a free and independent media — especially on the eve of a crucial election that could have far-reaching political implications in the Palestinian arena.

A Hamas victory in the upcoming elections would be catastrophic for President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority. Such an electoral outcome would be tantamount to a vote of no-confidence in their policies and performance.

Hamas, for its part, is investing a huge amount of resources in the election campaign, in hopes that the results would further boost its standing among Palestinians. Hamas fears that a defeat would undermine its power in the Gaza Strip and pave the way for its collapse.

As the election campaign heats up, it is clear that Hamas and the PA agree on one thing: intensifying their repressive measures against Palestinian journalists.

This media crackdown is essentially ignored by international human rights organizations. Why? One reason is that when Israel is not involved, assaults on freedom of the media and expression do not interest them.

Some Western journalists and human rights advocates also treat these cases as “internal Palestinian issues” that are of no relevance to international public opinion. A story about a Palestinian journalist who is arrested by Israel is news. A Palestinian journalist incarcerated or threatened by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas is not.

Take, for example, the case of Ahmed Said, a journalist from the Gaza Strip. Last week, he was arrested by Hamas security forces, who also confiscated his personal computer. Said has a radio show on the Sawt Al Sha’ab (Voice of the People) radio station, where Palestinians call in to voice their grievances and talk openly about the problems they are facing under Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

Before he was arrested, Said had phoned the spokesman of the Hamas police force, Ayman Al Batnihi, to discuss the recent rise in cases of homicide in the Gaza Strip. According to the journalist, the furious spokesman threatened him: “You are causing us a lot of problems and inciting people. I know how to deal with people. You need to be hanged.”

Said is no stranger to this sort of encounter. Last year, he was summoned for investigation for “incitement” against the Gaza City Municipality. The move came after Said used his talk show to talk about the case of street vendor Mohamed Abu Assi, who tried to commit suicide by ingesting poison after Gaza City Municipality inspectors banned him from selling corn at the beach.

Earlier, Hamas arrested another Palestinian journalist, this time for no clear reasons. Mahmoud Abu Awwad, who works for the Palestinian daily Al-Quds, was arrested from his home in the Shati refugee camp on July 25. He too had his personal computer and cellular phone seized.

Ahmed Said (left) and Mahmoud Abu Awwad (right) are two journalists living in the Gaza Strip who were recently arrested by Hamas security forces. Both journalists made the mistake of reporting on the suffering of Palestinians living under Hamas rule.

Abu Awwad’s family have since been banned from seeing him in prison. Their son, they were told by Hamas, is being held for “security reasons.” Abu Awwad, who has been working for Al-Quds for the past three years, had been reporting mostly about the hardships facing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In addition, he was also reporting for the Saudi London-based pan-Arab daily, Asharq Al Awsat.

“Hamas is trying to spread lies to distort the image of my son and justify his arrest,” Abu Awwad’s father told Al-Quds. “He was arrested because he was critical of the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Hamas government.”

Said and Abu Awwad have something in common. Both journalists made the mistake of reporting on the suffering of Palestinians living under Hamas rule. These are not the kind of stories that Hamas wishes to see ahead of the local and municipal elections. Rather, Hamas wants to see printed lies of prosperity.

In the context of its election campaign, Hamas has released a video featuring new houses and neighborhoods, as well as green and clean parks and smiling children. Entitled, “Thank You Hamas,” the video seeks to persuade Palestinian voters that life under Hamas is the best thing that could ever happen to them. And that is why they need to help Hamas extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank through the local and municipal elections. Journalists such as Said and Abu Awwad are spoiling the effect with their inconvenient truths.

Hamas, however, is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. In the face of its own massive journalistic repression, Hamas dares to criticize the Palestinian Authority for taking similar measures in the West Bank.

Like Hamas, the PA leadership has always been intolerant towards Palestinian (and sometimes non-Palestinian) journalists who dare not toe the party line. Hardly a week passes without hearing about another Palestinian journalist who has been arrested or summoned for investigation by the Palestinian Authority.

In recent weeks, the crackdown on journalists in the West Bank seems to have increased in light of the upcoming elections. The PA too wants to remove from the scene any journalist who might harm its loyalists’ chances of winning the local and municipal vote. In this regard, journalists are easy prey.

One of the recent victims is Mohamed Abu Khabisah, who reports on economic issues for the Turkish news agency, Anadolu. Palestinian security officers who raided his home shortly after midnight in Al Bireh, near Ramallah, seized his personal computer and documents before taking him into custody. His wife, Hana, said she too was briefly questioned about her husband’s source of income and the nature of his work. Palestinian sources say he was apparently arrested for reporting about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa.

Abu Khabisah was the sixth journalist to be arrested by the PA since the decision to hold local and municipal elections was taken two months ago. The other four are Yehya Saleh, Raghid Tabisah Ibrahim Al Abed, Mohamed Abu Jheisheh and Ziad Abu Arrah. In another recent incident, Palestinian security officers raided the home of journalist Musab Kafisheh and seized his personal computer, but did not take him into custody.

It is anxiety that is driving Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in their crackdown on Palestinian journalists. The “security reasons” they tout as an excuse for their repression is a foil for their sense of instability: the less politically secure they feel, the more they strip Palestinian journalists of their ability to report how things really stand in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

So far, so good, from the point of view of Hamas and the PA. Palestinian reporters have been duly deterred. But they are far from the only ones affected.

Foreign journalists rely almost entirely on Palestinian “fixers” and producers for information about what is happening under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Now, local Palestinians will think ten times before they provide their foreign employers with information. Still, it is a puzzle as to why foreign journalists choose not to report about the campaign of intimidation facing their Palestinian colleagues.

One might wonder if the human rights groups neglect these abuses because of their continued obsession with destroying Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Hamas has spent years poisoning the hearts and minds of Palestinian children. The Islamist movement is now trying a new brainwashing tactic: exorcism.

The practice, which aims to cast out “demons” that might have wormed their way into the children’s souls, has shocked many Palestinians.

This newest Hamas-perpetrated child abuse was exposed in a video that was leaked to Palestinian social media. The cruelty of the behavior has caused an uproar among Palestinians.

The video shows hysterical children in the company of exorcising preachers belonging to the Hamas-controlled Wakf (Islamic trust) Ministry in the Gaza Strip. This humiliating and invasive rite is being practiced at the Al-Nil School in Gaza City.

Three boys cry as they undergo an exorcism ritual at the Al-Nil School in Gaza City, performed by preachers belonging to the Hamas-controlled Wakf (Islamic trust) Ministry.

The preachers belong to a group called The Ship of Missionary Salvation. They enter schools in the Gaza Strip and ensure, through the exorcism rite, that the children are repentant and faithful to Islam.

The group is managed by the Wakf Ministry’s General Administration for Preaching and Guidance.

Thriller movies come to mind as the video unfolds, shedding light on the nature of religious indoctrination performed by Hamas on schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip.

One of the Hamas preachers is heard in the video declaring that, “We did not come to enact a theater scene, but to expel the devil from the hearts and minds and enter the satisfaction of Allah into hearts.”

The video features terrified teenagers kneeling in the school yard, while others are crying out loudly. At the same time, the Hamas preachers hold microphones and shout the Islamic battle cry, “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is Great!”].”

The Hamas abuse of schoolchildren is far from new, and far from a surprise to those who have long been following the Islamist movement in Gaza. These are the children who are later recruited as “warriors” in the jihad (holy war) against Israel and the “infidels.”

Since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has been using children as human shields and “soldiers” in the fight against Israel. Children dressed in military uniforms and brandishing automatic rifles and knives have become an integral part of Hamas’s military parades and rallies.

Caught on camera, Palestinian children are taught to hate those who are perceived as enemies of Islam. This is how new generations of Palestinians are raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and jihadists.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi expressed revulsion over the video, noting that the preachers’ sermons were full of intimidation and horror. This behavior, Ashrawi, stated, demonstrates the “reactionary nature” of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which would have a negative impact on the development of society and the values of Palestinians. Ashrawi also denounced the practice as a blatant violation of conventions protecting children rights.

Even the Marxist terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has come out against the video. The group voiced outrage at the “inhumane practices” against the children and called for an immediate inquiry into this form of mental torture and degradation. The group also warned against brainwashing the children and indoctrinating them through religious bigotry.

The Gaza City school video captures on camera the Palestinian leaders’ brainwashing and abuse of their own children.

It also captures the march of Palestinian society towards endorsing the tactics and ideology of radical Islam and groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Now the peace process in the Middle East awaits an exorcism of its own.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

During a celebration in Ramallah marking the 52^nd anniversary of the founding of his Fatah faction, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas declared that 2017 will be the “year of international recognition of the State of Palestine.” Hailing the recent anti-settlement UN Security Council resolution 2334, Abbas said he was prepared to work with the new administration of Donald Trump “to achieve peace in the region.”

But while Abbas and his lieutenants were celebrating in Ramallah, at least 11 Palestinians were wounded in a scuffle that erupted between rival Fatah factions in the Gaza Strip. According to sources in the Gaza Strip, the fight broke out between Abbas loyalists and supporters of estranged Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan. The confrontation, which was the most violent between the two sides in many years, is yet another sign of increasing schism in Fatah. Moreover, it is an indication of how Abbas’s control over his own faction is slipping through his hands. Hamas policemen who were at the scene did not interfere to break up the fight between the warring Fatah activists.

The melee in Gaza exposes as the lie that is Abbas’s repeated claim of a unified Fatah, able to lead the Palestinians towards statehood. Incredibly, Abbas seeks global recognition of a Palestinian state at a time when the flames in his own backyard are set to engulf him and his questionable regime.

Abbas says he wants to work with the Trump Administration to achieve peace in the Middle East, yet he cannot even achieve peace in his very own faction.

Abbas’s speech coincided with a new public opinion poll that showed that 64% of Palestinians want him to step down. The poll, conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, also showed that two-thirds of Palestinians do not believe that the current Fatah leadership can achieve their aspirations.

The poll’s findings show that the percentage of Palestinians who want Abbas to resign has risen over the past three months from 61% to 64%. More bad news from the poll: if presidential elections were to be held today, Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the terrorist group Hamas, would beat Abbas by 49% to 45%.

The results of the poll should not come as a surprise to those who have been monitoring Palestinian affairs for the past few years. Judging from the sentiments on the Palestinian street, there is good reason to believe that the 81-year-old Abbas, who is now in his 12^th year of his four-year term in office, has long ago lost much of his credibility among his people. The real surprise is that only 64% of Palestinians want to see him gone.

Many Palestinians hold Abbas personally responsible for the continued and rapid deterioration in the Palestinian arena. They see his incompetent and failed leadership as the main reason behind the 2007 violent Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. As soon as Hamas started shooting, Abbas’s fragile, corrupt and strife-ridden Palestinian Authority security forces collapsed. Critics of Abbas say that lack of leadership and decision-making on his part facilitated the Hamas seizure of the Gaza Strip.

Yet over the years, it has become evident that Abbas has not only lost the Gaza Strip and its two million inhabitants to Hamas, but that he is also losing control over his own Fatah faction there. Abbas has managed to alienate many Fatah leaders and activists in the Gaza Strip (most of whom are not necessarily affiliated with his arch-rival, Dahlan) to a point where Palestinians are now openly talking about two different Fatah factions.

Instead of devoting his energies to freeing the Gaza Strip from the iron grip of Hamas, Abbas has spent the past few years waging war against anyone in Fatah who dares to challenge his policies or criticize him. In this regard, he has resorted to a number of punitive measures that have further escalated tensions among Fatah cadres.

These measures include cutting off salaries and pensions to Fatah employees whose loyalty to Abbas is in question or who are suspected of being affiliated with Dahlan. As far as Abbas is concerned, affiliation with Hamas is less of a crime than being affiliated with Dahlan or any of his rivals in Fatah. Another measure that Abbas has taken to punish his rivals in Fatah: stripping them of their parliamentary immunity. The latest victims of this punishment: Mohamed Dahlan, Nasser Juma’ah, Shami Al-Shami, Najat Abu Baker and Jamal Al-Tirawi. Abbas took the decision without seeking the approval of the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or any other judicial or decision-making institution. His detractors point out that the removal of the parliamentary immunity is in violation of the Palestinian Basic Law, because the PLC is the only party authorized to take such a decision.

When Fatah legislators protested against Abbas’s arbitrary measure by holding a sit-in strike inside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ramallah, Abbas ordered his security forces to raid the compound and evict them by force. “This is a grave violation of the legislators’ rights and it is completely unjustified,” said a spokeswoman for Fatah in the Gaza Strip.

“It is also an indication of the repressive measures taken by the Palestinian Authority security forces. The legislators were holding a peaceful protest inside the offices of the Red Cross after President Abbas’s decision to remove their parliamentary immunity. We hold the president, the prime minister and the security forces responsible for the violations against human rights and public freedoms. We also condemn the silence of the Red Cross towards this despicable assault against the legislators inside the (Red Cross) offices.”

Abbas’s crackdown on his Fatah critics has driven them into the open arms of Hamas. After Abbas’s decision to strip the legislators of their parliamentary immunity, six Fatah PLC members participated in a Hamas-sponsored meeting of the PLC in the Gaza Strip. This was the first time since 2007 that such a move had been made.

The PLC has been effectively paralyzed since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. However, this has not prevented Hamas from continuing to convene sessions of the parliament in the Gaza Strip during the past few years. Until recently, Fatah legislators have boycotted these meetings because they do not recognize Hamas’s rule over the Gaza Strip. Abbas’s punitive and vengeful measures, however, have pushed Fatah legislators to change this status quo. This means that Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip, unlike their colleagues in the West Bank, are de facto recognizing the Hamas rule over the Gaza Strip. This is wonderful news for Hamas, whose leader, Ismail Haniyeh (according to the latest poll) is likely to defeat Abbas in a presidential election.

Emboldened by the growing divisions in Fatah, Hamas leaders are also beginning to flirt with disgruntled Abbas critics who have been hurt by Abbas’s measures. For the first time in many years, the Hamas government permitted thousands of Fatah gunmen to hold a military parade in the Gaza Strip this week, marking the faction’s 52^nd anniversary.

Pictured: For the first time in many years, Hamas permitted thousands of Fatah gunmen to hold a military parade in the Gaza Strip this week. (Image source: YouTube video screenshot)

The Fatah gunmen who marched in the Gaza Strip courtesy of Hamas are not supporters of Abbas, the overall commander of Fatah. Instead, they represent the “other face” of Fatah — the one that does not believe in any peace process with Israel and shares Hamas’s ambition of destroying Israel. The message that the Gaza Strip branch of Fatah wished to send to Abbas: Unlike you and your West Bank Fatah, we will not give up the “armed struggle” against Israel. “This parade sends a message to Abbas that Fatah has not relinquished the armed struggle,” explained Palestinian political scientist Ibrahim Abrash.

Meanwhile, Abbas appears to be living on a different planet. His ego prevents him from grasping the news that the polls reveal: most of his people are done with him. He refuses to wake up to the truth that his Fatah faction is falling into pieces, his erstwhile loyalists getting into bed with Hamas. He asks the world to recognize a Palestinian state when his own private residence in the Gaza Strip is forbidden to him. Indeed, it seems that the Palestinians are moving toward a “no-state solution” — a Gaza Strip run by Hamas and dissident Fatah members and a West Bank controlled by another Fatah that is still loyal to Abbas, largely because he is paying them salaries.

Abbas maintains that he is eager to work with the Trump Administration to achieve peace in the region. But will he have the courage to tell the new US administration some uncomfortable truths — namely that he has become a political liability to the majority of his people, and that the Palestinians have never been as divided as they are at this moment? In short, will Abbas dare to share the truth of the splintered Fatah’s no-state solution?

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.