“Samir’s” late brother, who served in the PA security forces in Gaza, was among the critically wounded in the Hamas coup of 2007. His friends rushed him to the emergency room. Before he could be treated, Hamas militants shut off the power and made it impossible for doctors to save his life. Years of Hamas persecution of his family followed. “These people profess Islam and claim to be religious,” Samir says, “but they slaughtered people.”

Since Hamas consolidated its rule over Gaza, it has waged a campaign of violence and harassment against Palestinians supporting other parties, as well as their families. During the initial putsch in 2007, Hamas killed dozens of noncombatants associated with Fatah. Some, like Muhammad Swairki, a cook employed by Fatah, were bound hand and foot and thrown off a 15-story building in Gaza City. As one Hamas commander put it in 2014, “The Resistance will show no mercy to anyone who informs on the Resistance and its men to the enemy. They will be dealt with through field executions.”

Hamas authorities liberally accuse their critics of collaboration with Israel. As several human rights groups have noted, however, evidence in these cases is murky at best, and due process does not exist. A 2014 report by Amnesty International found that on numerous occasions, the only evidence of the supposed offense was a confession extracted under torture, used in a “grossly unfair” trial. That year alone, Hamas executed at least 23 people on charges of “collaboration.” In periods of heightened tension with Israel, as Amnesty International’s Philip Luther noted, “Hamas forces took the opportunity to ruthlessly settle scores, carrying out a series of unlawful killings and other grave abuses… [actions] designed to exact revenge and spread fear across the Gaza Strip.”