Palestinian group Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, gestures as he speaks during his visit at Ain el Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, Lebanon September 6, 2020. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

i24 News – Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip held a number of rallies denouncing the Hamas terror group ruling over the coastal enclave and demanding improvements to their quality of life.

Gaza |

Demonstrations in several towns in Gaza demanding better life conditions from the Hamas authorities especially with regard to the electricity part and to allow them municipality elections.

1. Jabalyah Refugee Camp pic.twitter.com/zAjmY5xAS0

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The long-brewing discontent among Gazans living under the yoke of the Islamist terrorist group was magnified in recent weeks by power shortages that left residents with only a few hours of electricity a day.

“Where is the electricity and where is the gas?” the protesters chanted at a refugee camp, repeating the refrain of “for shame. For shame.”

Footage showed protesters torching Hamas flags and denouncing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

However, local sources told i24NEWS that the volume of the protests appeared to be overstated in some of the reports on social media and in Israeli outlets, as well as that at least one of the protests was fueled first and foremost by grievances against local authorities.

The protest in Khan Yunis was apparently sparked by a deadly incident where a bulldozer belonging to the municipality caused the death of a local resident in the process of demolishing an allegedly illegal structure.

Subsequently, Khan Yunis mayor Alaa al-Batta stepped down, followed by the resignation of the entire municipal council.

The tensions in the Hamas-ruled territory came amid efforts to effect a reconciliation between the terrorist group and the Palestinian Authority, the body in control of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Abbas and Haniyeh met in Cairo earlier in the day as part of a summit brokered by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Last week the two met in Ankara, in a summit arranged by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both occasions were boycotted by the Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, two of the most extremist of all Palestinian terror factions.