JERUSALEM — Hamas leader Yehia Sinwar for years oversaw a secret police force in the Gaza Strip that monitored ordinary Palestinians and compiled dossiers on youth, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents examined. by the New York Times.
The unit, known as the General Security Service, relied on a network of informants in Gaza, some of whom reported their own neighbors to the police. People have been booked by security for attending demonstrations or publicly criticizing Hamas. In some cases, records suggest that authorities followed people to determine whether they were in romantic relationships outside of marriage.
Hamas has long operated an oppressive system of governance in Gaza, and many Palestinians know that security officials are watching them closely. But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, presented just weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the extent to which this largely unknown unit has penetrated Palestinian lives.
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The documents show that Hamas leaders, although they claim to represent the people of Gaza, would not tolerate even the slightest ounce of dissent. Security officials followed journalists and people suspected of immoral behavior. Agents had critics removed from social media and discussed ways to defame political opponents. Political protests were seen as threats to be suppressed.
The daily inhabitants of Gaza were stuck – behind the wall of Israel’s crippling blockade and under the constant control and surveillance of security forces. This dilemma persists today, with the added threat of Israeli ground troops and airstrikes.
“We are facing the occupation’s bombings and the brutality of the local authorities,” Ehab Fasfous, a journalist in Gaza who was listed in the archives of the General Security Service, said in a telephone interview from Gaza.
Fasfous, 51, is described in a report as one of the “main enemies of the Hamas movement.”
The documents were provided to The Times by officials with Israel’s military intelligence directorate, who said they were seized during raids in Gaza.
Journalists then interviewed the people named in the files. These people recounted key events, confirmed biographical information, and, in the case of Fasfous, described interactions with authorities that aligned with the secret files. The documents reviewed by The Times include seven intelligence files spanning from October 2016 to August 2023. The military intelligence directorate said it was aware of files containing information on at least 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
The General Security Service is officially part of the Hamas political party but functions as part of the government. A Palestinian familiar with the inner workings of Hamas, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the service was one of three powerful internal security organs in Gaza. The others were military intelligence, which generally focuses on Israel, and the Internal Security Service, a branch of the Interior Ministry.
Basem Naim, Hamas spokesman, said General Security Service officials were inaccessible during the war.
With monthly expenses of $120,000 before the war with Israel, the unit numbered 856, records show. Among them, more than 160 were paid to spread Hamas propaganda and launch online attacks against opponents at home and abroad. The unit’s status today is unknown as Israel has dealt a major blow to Hamas’s military and government capabilities.
Israeli intelligence believes Sinwar directly supervised the General Security Service, according to three Israeli intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They said the slideshow was prepared for Sinwar personally, but did not specify how they knew this.
The presentation said the General Security Service strives to protect Hamas’s population, assets and information, and to support the decision-making of its leaders.
Some slides focused on the personal security of Hamas leaders. Others discussed ways to quell protests, including last year’s “We Want to Live” protests that criticized electricity shortages and the cost of living. Security officials also tracked members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an ideologically aligned militant group that often partners with Hamas.
Some tactics, such as amplifying Hamas’s own message, appeared to be routine political politics. In other cases, officials suggested using the intelligence to weaken opponents and distort their reputations, although the records remained vague on how to do so.
“Undertake a number of offensive and defensive media campaigns to confuse and influence adversaries using private and proprietary information,” the document reads.
Security officers stopped Fasfous on his way to a protest in August, seized his phone and ordered him to leave, according to a report. Fasfous confirmed that two plainclothes officers approached him. Authorities searched for his recent calls and wrote that he was communicating with “suspicious people” in Israel.
“We believe it is necessary to get closer to him because he is a negative person, full of hatred and who only highlights the faults of the Gaza Strip,” the document said.
Most frustrating, Fasfous said, was that the officers were using his phone to send flirtatious messages to a co-worker. “They wanted to accuse me of a moral violation,” he said.
The report does not include this detail but describes ways to “manage” Fasfous. “Defame him,” the report said.
“If you are not with them, you become an atheist, an infidel and a sinner,” Fasfous said. He acknowledged supporting the protests and criticizing Hamas online, but said the people he was in contact with in Israel were Palestinians who owned food and clothing businesses. He said he helped manage their social media accounts.
The goals of the General Security Service are similar to those of security services in countries like Syria, which have used secret units to suppress dissent. General Security Service files, however, mention tactics such as censorship, intimidation, and surveillance rather than physical violence.
“This General Security Service is like the Stasi of East Germany,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs. “You always have one eye on the street.”
Palestinians in Gaza live in fear and are reluctant to voice their dissent, analysts say.
“A lot of people practice self-censorship,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor from Gaza City. “They just don’t want any problems with the Hamas government.”
This view clashes with the most vociferous comments from Israeli leaders, such as President Isaac Herzog, who blamed Palestinians in Gaza for failing to overthrow Hamas before the October 7 attacks.
“It’s an entire nation that is responsible,” he said. “This rhetoric that civilians didn’t know, weren’t involved, is absolutely false. They could have risen.
According to the records, the General Security Service also attempted to enforce a conservative social order.
In December 2017, for example, authorities investigated a report that a woman was acting immorally with a man who owned a clothing store. A security report says she visited the store for an hour one day, then more than two hours the next. The report presents no evidence of wrongdoing, but suggests that “concerned parties” address the issue.
An October 2016 report described young men and women committing unspecified “immoral acts” at a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Khan Younis at night. Hamas views the Palestine Liberation Organization as a compromised entity, whose leader too often favors Israeli interests. The report provided no evidence of wrongdoing but recommended summoning a man who claimed to be in possession of videos and photos.
The files also show that Hamas was suspicious of foreign organizations and journalists.
When Monique van Hoogstraten, a Dutch journalist, visited a protest encampment along the border with Israel in April 2018, authorities noted the most mundane details. They noted the make and model of his car and his license plate number. They said she took photos of children and tried to question an elderly woman. Van Hoogstraten confirmed the reporting trip in an interview with The Times.
The dossier recommended further “recognition” of journalists.
None of the files reviewed by The Times were dated after the start of the war. But Fasfous said the government remained interested in him.
Early in the war, he said he took footage of security forces beating people vying for seats outside a bakery. The authorities confiscated his camera.
Fasfous complained to a government official in Khan Younis, who told him to stop reporting and “destabilize the home front,” Fasfous recalled.
“I told him I was reporting the truth and the truth wouldn’t hurt him, but it fell on deaf ears,” he said. “We cannot live here while these criminals remain in control. »
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