Hamas security forces "barbarically assault" and hospitalize a female journalist for not wearing the hijab head covering

Headline: “Hamas security forces assaulted and cursed a female journalist, and the [Palestinian Journalists’] Syndicate condemns it”

“The [Palestinian] Journalists’ Syndicate condemned the barbaric assault by a Hamas member against female journalist Rewaa Mershid and the unacceptable humiliation that she underwent because she was not wearing a hijab (i.e., a Muslim head covering for women).

The syndicate noted that journalist Mershid reported that on Sunday [April 25, 2021], during filming in the Juhor Al-Dik area… in the Gaza Strip, two Hamas military members arrived and prevented her and her female colleague from filming. They confiscated her colleague’s cell phone and detained the two of them until the women’s police arrived, even though she told them about the nature of her journalistic work.

She noted that after she contacted ‘senior security officials’ in Hamas she was allowed to leave the site, but when she handed over her documents, a member of ‘the [forces] maintaining order’ said harmful words to her about her general appearance and because she was not wearing a hijab – which she condemned and rejected. In response he pulled out a tree branch and began wildly assaulting her, as a result of which her entire body was wounded and she was evacuated to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.