'Exhilarated' Lebanese Palestinians rush to join Hamas after October 7 war - report

As the war in Gaza drags on, Hamas has begun to face some resistance from the population for its actions, but in Lebanon, Palestinians who have been traditionally excluded from public life are rapidly joining the terrorist organization, according to a report in the New York Times on Saturday.

Ain Al-Hilweh is one of 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which were founded in 1948 and have evolved into city-states within a city.

The Lebanese military has kept out of the camps, preferring to let armed Palestinian groups fight it out in the quasi-independent refugee camps.

Journalists have been kept out of the camps by the Lebanese government for years; New York Times journalists were able to sneak into a camp during a funeral and speak with residents.

Hundreds recruited

The journalists spoke with the Hamas chief in the area, Ayman Shanaa, about the recruitment situation.

Shanaa told them that hundreds of young men had been recruited from that area alone but refused to give an exact number.

During the funeral procession, calls of support for Hamas and Yahya Sinwar could be heard loudly and clearly, “Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, the Battle of Glory and Victory. Our blood and our souls we will sacrifice to you, martyr!”

The journalists maligned the loss of Palestinian secular armed groups that dominated the Palestinian side of the conflict. Replacing them is a slew of radical Sunni Islamist groups, of which Hamas is the principal group.

Palestinians generally do not join Hezbollah due to the sectarian difference, mainly Sunni Islamism vs Shia Revolutionaryism, the report noted.