Daniel Lubetzky

You may not see this on TV, but something huge happened in Gaza over the last couple days. 

Hundreds of thousands of people rallied across the center of Gaza City to commemorate Yasser Arafat’s passing.

AFP/via BBC

The rally was organized by the "National Committee", a group of Palestinian civic leaders, primarily from Fatah but also spreading across other parties and unaffiliated Palestinian luminaries tasked with representing the people.

The few media reports that I’ve seen on this are reporting that 5/7/10 people were killed and many others wounded as the Hamas-led police force opened fire at the crowds that were condemning their coup d’etat.

But the bigger story is that this is the biggest demonstration since Hamas took over Gaza by force, and arguably the biggest demonstration in Gaza ever.

THE PEOPLE ON THE GROUND were shouting "Shiia, Shiaa" against the Hamas forces, openly associating them as peons of the Iranian government.

For days, Hamas had been trying to prevent this mobilization from happening, going to the lengths of blocking out all the bus companies so they could not be rented by organizers to bring in people from the outskirts.

But people drove in their cars, and walked long distances, to make their voices heard.

Checkpoints across Gaza set up by Hamas forces were not able to stop this mobilization.

We had a setback last month when we had to postpone the OneVoice Summit in Jericho intended to send a message of support to President Abbas.

But this time the people of Gaza, hundreds of thousands of them, risked their lives to vote with their feet against militant extremism.

Here are a couple of stories that provide more context on this important development:

AFP: Hamas Kills Six at Arafat Rally in Gaza

IHT: Former Gaza strongman Dahlan says Hamas breakup of rally sign of group’s growing difficulties

AP via BBC