Hamas War on Women: Islamist Reign of Terror

When Hamas operatives nabbed Manar al-Sharif from her Gazan apartment in 2020, they brought her to an all-women prison where she spent weeks in solitary confinement. Manar’s crime? She was in a Palestinian peace organization that set up a Skype event for Israelis and Palestinians: “Skype with your Enemy.” Terrorists said Manar instigated an event that weakened “revolutionary spirit.” Palestinian freedom fighters had captured Manar before, in 2017, when she was mingling with male and female friends in her apartment. Because Hamas doesn’t allow men and women to intermingle, police took Manar to jail, where they beat her for two days.

Hamas terrorists have an uncomplicated history as woman-haters. The group only allows women privileges based on their complementary roles to men. A Hamas-run court in the Gaza Strip ruled in 2021 that women needed a male guardian’s permission to travel. Hamas rarely “punished perpetrators convicted of family violence,” the State Department said in a 2020 report, and it does not “enforce the law effectively in domestic violence cases.” Hamas shut down a women’s TV channel and a girls’ ballet school in 2017 in Gaza and banned women from competing in a United Nations–organized marathon in 2013.

When Hamas operatives nabbed Manar al-Sharif from her Gazan apartment in 2020, they brought her to an all-women prison where she spent weeks in solitary confinement. Manar’s crime? She was in a Palestinian peace organization that set up a Skype event for Israelis and Palestinians: “Skype with your Enemy.” Terrorists said Manar instigated an event that weakened “revolutionary spirit.” Palestinian freedom fighters had captured Manar before, in 2017, when she was mingling with male and female friends in her apartment. Because Hamas doesn’t allow men and women to intermingle, police took Manar to jail, where they beat her for two days.

Hamas terrorists have an uncomplicated history as woman-haters. The group only allows women privileges based on their complementary roles to men. A Hamas-run court in the Gaza Strip ruled in 2021 that women needed a male guardian’s permission to travel. Hamas rarely “punished perpetrators convicted of family violence,” the State Department said in a 2020 report, and it does not “enforce the law effectively in domestic violence cases.” Hamas shut down a women’s TV channel and a girls’ ballet school in 2017 in Gaza and banned women from competing in a United Nations–organized marathon in 2013.