Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

In an op-ed for The New York Times, I argue that saving Gaza & its Palestinian people requires resisting Hamas, weaving in personal themes, addressing issues with the Left & "pro-Palestine" movement & proposing a vision for Gaza's future Transformation.
nytimes.com/2026/09/04/opi…

REVEALED: The scandal surrounding Gaza's failed winterization efforts lays bare a grim reality: Hamas obstructed attempts to protect Palestinian civilians before the devastating winter storms that flooded tens of thousands of tents.

Palestinian Authority employees inside Gaza have reported that professionals from the Ministries of Public Works and Relief Affairs were intimidated, summoned, and coerced by Hamas into signing pledges not to undertake humanitarian projects without the group's approval. According to their accounts, those who defied Hamas risked so-called "field justice," including beatings and worse.

Several officials, including Najla Hammad, Ihab Al-Bahtiti, Khaled Abu Safiya, Wiam Aboul-Nasr, Dr. Adnan Hamouda, and Ahmed Abu Zaiter, have publicly stated that efforts to build more durable fiberglass housing and improve conditions for displaced civilians were blocked.

Another example was a proposal that was put forward to demolish several heavily damaged towers which were at risk of collapse from rainwater after extensive bombardment. According to those involved, Hamas blocked the removal of the “Bank of Palestine Tower” in Gaza City's Rimal neighborhood, reportedly arguing that it would "collapse from the rain anyway." The terrorist group did not show any concern for the civilian lives that would be lost when the tower eventually collapses on its own, because it wants dead Palestinians and news of tragedy to keep Gaza in the news cycle and to gain global sympathy, hoping for more incoming resources and donations for the Strip’s humanitarian and reconstruction needs that it could siphon.

Additionally, Hamas has also been accused of obstructing construction projects intended to create safer communities for displaced Gazans in southern Gaza, prioritizing political control over humanitarian relief.

This is a reminder that Gaza's suffering is not only a consequence of war. It is also the result of a fascist and ruthless governing power that repeatedly places its own interests above the welfare of the people it claims to represent. The same terror group that helped bring catastrophe upon Gaza continues to obstruct efforts to mitigate its consequences.

As floodwaters sweep through displacement camps and families endure another winter in misery, the question is unavoidable: how many Palestinian lives could have been spared had Hamas allowed humanitarian, housing, and reconstruction efforts to proceed unimpeded?

The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania protest by “pro-Palestine” activists targeting Jewish-owned businesses was a pointless hate rally that did nothing for Palestinians and did everything to inflame community tensions, held on the eve of “the Night of Broken Glass,” or Kristallnacht, one of the darkest anniversaries in modern Jewish history, when the Holocaust began. The notion that harassing Jewish delis, restaurants, or Israeli-themed establishments in Philadelphia meaningfully challenges Israeli government policy thousands of miles away is absurd. It is performative activism at its worst.

Imagine if these activists reached out to the Jewish community and said, ‘let’s do a joint fundraiser for the humanitarian needs in Gaza in a non-political fashion and find a worthwhile organization that will support Palestinian civilians.’ Imagine if these activists developed pragmatic, achievable, tangible, and attainable policy goals that they could have pushed for in the new Congress to improve the lives of Gazans and promote reasonable US policy that can move the needle in a meaningful way, instead of harassing Jewish businesses and random Jews in Philadelphia.

Also imagine if the supposedly non-antisemitic and non-hateful elements of the “pro-Palestine” movement intervened to say, ‘maybe let’s not do this, and maybe our efforts could be better focused elsewhere.’ Instead, this movement has disintegrated into decentralized and highly radicalized networks that feed off each other’s contagious toxicity, rhetorical drunkenness, intellectual incoherence, and persistent self-sabotage. This is why the “pro-Palestine industrial complex” is all about making declarative, self-aggrandizing points, almost never about actually making a difference for the benefit of the Palestinian people.

I have been warmly welcomed at these Jewish-owned establishments, including those of Michael Solomonov, even as I have made my strong critiques of the Israeli government’s actions and policies well-known. In the face of such hate and foolishness, I encourage all Philadelphians to support these restaurants.

Look at this deranged, gross British man in Thailand, ostensibly there as an ecologist and marine-life photographer, who decided to accuse me of prostitution (projection much while living in Thailand?), depravity, and worthlessness because I, an actual Palestinian from Gaza, criticized his beloved Hamas terrorists. It is a perfect illustration of the pathologies that have become all too common within parts of the "pro-Palestine" industrial complex.

Somehow, criticizing a jihadist Islamist terror group that worsens suffering in Gaza is now treated as being anti-Palestinian or indifferent to Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian cause will never meaningfully advance the interests of Palestinians so long as Islamists, jihadists, Houthis, pedophiles, antisemites, fascists, communists, sectarians, grifters, apologists for extremism, fake journalists, and performative activists can gain influence, relevance, and moral credibility by exploiting the cause while attacking actual Palestinians.

I received this testimony from a Muslim cleric in Gaza, a former imam who broke with Hamas and its jihadist Islamist ideology and is now displaced in Deir al-Balah. He describes how Hamas destroyed an entire generation during its 2-decade rule by radicalizing children from a young age through extremist camps and narratives that glorified violence, hatred, and fanaticism, the same worldview on display on October 7.

As I have noted repeatedly, a growing number of Gazans are drawing a direct line between two generations of indoctrination, the atrocities of October 7, and the devastation that followed in Gaza. These anti-Hamas voices reject the "resistance" narrative and recognize an obvious reality: rebuilding Gaza requires de-radicalization alongside de-militarization. Their ranks are growing. If acknowledged, supported, and nurtured, this movement could become one of the most consequential forces shaping Gaza's future.