The Times of Israel reports: “Hamas responded Thursday to growing public protests inside Gaza by insisting the demonstrations are directed against Israel and the ongoing war, rather than against the terror group ruling the Strip.

Thousands of Gazans have taken to the streets this week in rare displays of public anger against Hamas, chanting for the end of the group’s nearly two-decade rule after it plunged the enclave into war by attacking southern Israel on October 7, taking hundreds of hostages, many of whom it is still holding.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim told the Qatari channel Al-Araby that ‘demonstrations are expected from people facing extermination, against war and destruction.’

Despite multiple media reports, images, and videos from protests, as well as media interviews with Gazans to the contrary, Naim claimed the rallies are being misrepresented as criticizing Hamas’s de facto regime…”