Daniel Lubetzky

The OneVoice Gaza office was burglarized last night.

At 1:30am, armed guards forced the landlord of our office at gunpoint to open the doors to the OneVoice office in Gaza.

They stole two old laptops.

Nobody was harmed.

At first I tried to assuage my team members and joked that the thieves would be "cursed when they find out how old those two laptops are, and end up with frozen screens all the time."

But frankly the feeling of being violated does creep up, and I am sure it is ten-fold greater on the people on the ground. 

It is particularly disturbing that they zoned in on our laptops and could be trying to data-mine to get information about the 18,000+ Gazans that joined our movement in June, prior to our freezing the signature drive (which we hence have re-launched in spite of the conditions in Gaza now).

Other civil society organizations have complained about similar incursions and violations.  Hamas has a tight control over society and there is no "crime" committed and no action taken, certainly no armed groups roaming around, without the blessing of or active guidance by the militant wing of Hamas.

Civil society organizations need to band together and stand up against such abuses.  Otherwise they will continue to be intimidated and subjugated till there is no civil society left.