The Truth About Hamas

True and heart breaking story

By Itzik Azar

Translated by Moshe Mekler

July 2014

A letter from Axxxx, son of a friend of mine from Gaza. This letter came to my hands from Axxxx who lives in Gaza.

Background:

I knew Axxxx's father, Myyyy, who worked many years ago at a metalworking shop in south Tel Aviv district. A very nice man who used to leave every morning Gaza at 04:00 am and start working at 6:30am at the metalworking shop in the Tel Aviv. Myyyy worked hard in order to provide for his family to buy an apartment in the city of Gaza. Axxxx, Myyyy's son used to come once in a while to help his father with his work. Today Axxxx, is a 30 year old father who writes his history:

The Letter:

Many years ago when my father had to leave his work in Tel Aviv he started to work in a small metalworking shop in Gaza. Economy was hard and I used to help him work in order to provide for our family. A minute after Israel had to leave the Gaza strip at 2006, Pickup trucks started driving around the city with thugs from Hamas raged the streets of the city, They were shooting everywhere and hitting every person that looked like he was against their agenda, people were afraid to walk the streets, my father banned my family to leave the house for a few days.

After a few days only me and my father went outside to the metalworking shop in order to provide for our family, every time we heard a vehicle we would fear and look for a hideout at the shop. One day a pickup truck filled with Hamas thugs stopped by the shop, they went in and took the owner, two days after he came back with his face down and talked to my father, I sat aside and listened. I understood Hamas notified him that from today his shop will work for Hamas, and Hamas only. They set the prices and the demand that was ordered from the shop.

Since that day every morning an armed Hamas member used to come to the shop and give us orders to make winged metal pipes and straight ahead I understood that they were used to launch rockets. One day a pickup truck drove by and stopped, the Hamas members came down and took my father from the shop, we never saw him again, later I understood they killed him and threw his body into a pit.

Life became harder and harder, work wasn't easy, we got a small allowance that barely was enough for bread and milk. One day a friend of mine offered me to come with him to do some work, since I needed the money I went with him. We came to an apartment in Gaza, we were six guys, they put us at the back of a truck, we sat in the dark and couldn't see where were going, we drove for an hour and finally they stopped and we come out of the truck standing in a closed building, we didn't know where we are. They showed us into a hole in the ground and told us to go down, the slope was scary and we found ourselves inside a tunnel, we walked for a few hundred meters and we got to the end where two Hamas members waited for us, they gave us working tools and explained us what to do in order to make the tunnel longer.

Work was hard, we were suffocating from lack of air, we used to work 8 hour shifts and then 4 hours of rest, we stayed in the tunnel for 10 days. The Hamas members changed every day, they used to scream on us and hit us when they thought the output of our work was too low. After 10 days they took us out, put us in a truck, gave us little money and drove us back to someplace in Gaza. We didn't know where we had been or what tunnel we dug. The pay was low but they did pay, I never came back to do that work. I went back to try to get some work at the metalworking shop but I found that it was closed, I asked the neighbours what happened and they answered with fear that Hamas moved the shop to another location and nobody knew where. They told me that every morning a truck with Hamas members comes, picks up the workers, puts them at the closed back of the truck and drives them away and bring them back late at night.

I found my self working in temporary jobs in order to provide for my family. We live in constant fear, once in a while a truck full with armed Hamas members comes by and attacks civilians. We see in Gaza the rich Hamas members living in glamorous houses, driving new cars, sending their children to universities abroad while most of Gaza's citizens living fear and poverty, without the ability to work. Sometimes the kids are telling that Hamas giving away free candies in different locations around Gaza, the kids go to get the sweets and right after we hear that rockets were launched from the same location. Israel retaliates to the same location and kids get hurt.

I write you this letter because the situation is very bad. Luckily for us we are living in the city of Gaza but we have families that live in other parts of the Gaza strip, the Hamas runs a war against Israel, shooting rockets constantly on your communities and we the people of Gaza suffer the consequences, we just have no place to hide. The members of Hamas are hiding in their bunkers under ground, some of them are not even in the Gaza strip, they are protected and they have no problem to continue to fight.

There were many families that rented Hamas rooms and yards at the back of their homes. Hamas gave them money to put food on the table and now they fire rockets to Israel from those people's homes. Many of the homes get blown by your airforce strikes. We suffer so much, we're afraid of the Hamas, we're afraid of your bombings. There are huge explosions all the time, we hear the sound of Hamas launching their rockets and we know that a minute their will be another sound of blast from your rockets. We heard about the tunnels that Hamas dug and I understood that I helped them, what I don't understand is why Hamas is doing everything possible to hurt Israel instead of developing the Gaza strip to make the peoples live better.

I hope everything will end and me and my family will survive, but I lost hope, I know that Hamas will take all the money that the world gives to restore Gaza and use it to build more tunnels, buy more weapons and build more villas for the heads of Hamas. Hamas's thugs will continue to drive the streets and hurt the civilians. The only thing I can say is that some of Hamas leaders are hiding in bunkers under hospitals and schools because they know Israel won't hurt them there and that's a shame. We hope that the world will help to free us from the fearful and cruel Hamas rule in the Gaza strip. I'm sure that if you'll spread this letter you won't expose my fathers real name who was your friend and neither my name. I pray for death to all Hamas members and that we will get freedom and a chance to live a normal life for our children in Gaza. I wish we can go back to the days my father worked in Tel Aviv with his good friends in Israel