Hamas Operating Underground Prisons to Crush Internal Dissent

Key Facts

Published: October 23, 2025 Location: Jerusalem Source: Israel Hayom

• Hamas is operating underground prisons in Gaza to detain and torture internal rivals, Israel Hayom reports.
• The newly formed Sahem (“Arrow”) Unit, made up of 1,000 armed members, leads the crackdown on dissent.
• Gazans accused of disloyalty are held in underground cells without food, sunlight, or due process.
• The Sahem Unit, formed in 2024 under Hamas’s “Interior Ministry,” has carried out assassinations and public executions to silence opposition.

by Worthy News Jerusalem Bureau Staff

(Worthy News) – Hamas has begun detaining and torturing its rivals in underground prison facilities in Gaza, stepping up its internal repression even as the ceasefire with Israel holds, Israel Hayom reported Thursday.

Sources in Gaza revealed that residents suspected of disloyalty or subversion are being abducted and held in subterranean cells where they are deprived of food, water, and sunlight. Detainees are reportedly denied any legal process or notice prior to arrest.

The campaign to stamp out dissent is being led by Hamas’s Sahem (“Arrow”) Unit — a 1,000-member force established in 2024 under Hamas’s so-called Interior Ministry. Many of its fighters were transferred from the elite Nukhba units of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat, several Hamas field commanders were killed recently in central Gaza refugee camps after receiving orders to pursue rival clans in northern Gaza. The Sahem Unit has also absorbed members of Hamas’s police apparatus and recruited unaffiliated Gazans, especially from Jabaliya, to extend control through arrests, executions, and intimidation.

In several cases, the Sahem Unit has carried out assassinations of opposition leaders and public executions of protest figures, with footage circulated by Hamas-linked outlets to instill fear. Officially, the force is tasked with tracking and “neutralizing” alleged collaborators, but insiders describe it as a secret police unit dedicated to crushing Hamas’s domestic opponents.

This week, Hamas announced that it had arrested members of the “Popular Forces” militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab and seized their military equipment. The group has yet to respond publicly.

The Sahem Unit’s founder and commander, Zakr Ahmad Fuad Talib, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in June on Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood. Despite heavy losses, Hamas continues to replenish its leadership ranks.

On Sunday, Israel Hayom reported that Hamas appointed Tayseer al-Batsh — a former Hamas police chief injured in an Israeli airstrike in 2014 — as its new “interior minister.” His first assignment, according to Palestinian sources, is to lead a brutal crackdown on the powerful Doghmush clan in Gaza City.

The revelations highlight the terror group’s deepening internal paranoia and its growing use of underground infrastructure — once dedicated to fighting Israel — to imprison and eliminate its own people.

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