Introducing Whispered in Gaza — 25 short, animated interviews about life under Hamas

“I want Gaza to be freed from the Hamas government,” says “Mariam,” a lifelong resident of the coastal strip that Hamas has ruled since 2007. “Then Gaza will develop. We will have tourists and theater.”

Mariam tells her story – a story of growing up singing and dancing as Hamas took power – in a short, animated clip. It’s part of “Whispered in Gaza,” a series of 25 videos produced by the Center for Peace Communications, a nonprofit organization in New York.

The series is presented in three parts, in English and French, by The Times of Israel in partnership with CPC, along with an Arabic edition of the clips featured on alarabiya.net, a Persian edition via Kayhan newspaper, a Spanish edition on Infobae and a Portuguese edition on RecordTV.

All interviews were conducted in 2022.

Palestinian speakers, all of whom currently live in Gaza, described arbitrary arrests, extortion and violence by Hamas authorities. Some express a longing for the time before Hamas seized power in a coup against the Palestinian Authority in 2007, when they were freer to express themselves and follow the life path they chose. (The PA has held partial power in Gaza since 1994 under the Oslo Accords. Israel maintained overall control of the Strip until 2005, when it demolished its 21 settlements there, expelled their 9,000 Israeli Jewish residents and unilaterally withdrew to pre-1967 lines. )

According to CPC President Joseph Braude, the series “challenges those who justify Hamas’s violence to choose between supporting Hamas and supporting the Palestinians it oppresses. At the same time, it challenges those who oppose Hamas to recognize that countless Gazans want a brighter and more peaceful future, and to ask what can be done to enable them.”

WATCH: What is life like under Hamas? “Whispered in Gaza” offers a unique, courageous testimony

“Do I believe in peace with Hamas?” asks “Basma,” another Gazan woman, in a second clip in response to a question. “No. There can be no peace with them.”

The CPC interviewer laughs and explains that she asked about peace with Israel, a possibility to which the woman appears to be more open.

“Much has been said about the impact of Israeli policies and actions on the civilian population in Gaza, and rightly so,” noted Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Yet the behavior of Hamas, the de facto rulers of the Strip – who have created an oppressive, suffocating reality for the majority of Gazans – has received far less attention. “Whispered in Gaza is a laudable effort to provide ordinary people in Gaza with a platform to communicate with an international audience.”

The CPC promotes Arab-Israeli engagement to promote development in the Middle East, according to senior US diplomat Dennis Ross, who chairs its board.

In 2021, over 300 Iraqis from across the country gathered at a CPC conference in the northern city of Erbil, where speakers called for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords. The CCP-backed Arab Council for Regional Integration held public conferences where Arab thinkers advocated relations with the Israeli people. Other CPC projects protect peace activists from retribution and foster Arab-Israeli partnerships.

The CPC found that Gazans were eager to tell the world about their suffering under Hamas. Many are already expressing themselves on social media, Braude noted, but face pressure from Hamas to remove their posts.

One interviewee says he filmed Hamas police beating women and a child with Down syndrome for protesting their electricity being cut off. Hours after he uploaded the video, thousands of frustrated Gazans contacted him. He was on the run from Hamas for days until he was arrested and forced to take down the video.

“I understand now that their prisons are full of decent people,” he says. “Anyone who tries to think for themselves ends up there.”

CPC uses animation and voice-changing technology to protect the identity of speakers. Participants agreed to be interviewed to share their ideas and experiences with an international audience, Braude said, adding, “They want these stories to be heard.”

The Times of Israel reviewed the original footage used in the cartoons, confirming the identity of the speakers and that their testimony was accurately translated. Said Braude: “An artistic depiction of the story a voice tells can provide a visceral experience of someone’s life that is hard to forget.”

Attempts to gauge public opinion in Gaza through polls tend to produce mixed results. As for Israel, a 2022 poll by the Washington Institute found that most Gazans both support a “permanent two-state solution” based on the pre-1967 borders and “the return of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea “. Part of the challenge has to do with a 2021 finding by Palestinian pollsters that 62 percent of Gazans said they could not criticize Hamas without fear. (A speaker in one clip notes, “If you say, ‘I don’t want war,’ you’re branded a traitor.”)

In 2019, approximately 1,000 Gazans staged street demonstrations against Hamas under the banner “We Want to Live”, resisting shooting and imprisonment.

The clips, in which the interviewees describe their aspirations, include calls for international support for Hamas’ opponents, as well as for dialogue with the Israelis. Braude said the series does not aim to promote a particular policy, but rather to help Gazans join the global conversation.

Javad Anani, a former Jordanian foreign minister and peace negotiator between Jordan and Israel, reviewed the material before publication. In an accompanying monograph published Monday, he called it a step toward “peace and prosperity” in Gaza: “Our shared hope for such a future is why it was right and appropriate for this effort to shine a spotlight on the tragic plight of the parents and their children in Gaza. It can help catalyze a new dynamic, moving beyond the current grim, dead-end reality by fostering constructive dialogue.

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