“they like to say that they are an elected government, which is narrowly true, but again, the last election, the last parliamentary election, was in 2006. The average person in Gaza is 18 years old. The median person is 18 years old, which means the last time there was a Palestinian election, most people in Gaza weren’t even born. So they literally have had no opportunity to choose their leadership. I’ve been going to Gaza for more than a decade now, and one thing that I find increasingly when I go is: There’s a level of popular anger and popular resentment aimed at Hamas. Of course, there’s anger towards Israel, there’s anger towards Egypt, both of which maintain a blockade on Gaza, but the group has lost a lot of popular support. It was elected in 2006, partly as a protest vote against Fatah, which is the nationalist party that controls the West Bank. It’s an incredibly corrupt party. People opted for Hamas in 2006 not necessarily because they agreed with the group’s ideology but because they thought it was a cleaner alternative.
It has turned out not to be that. Most people in Gaza think that Hamas is equally corrupt, and they think that it has done an atrocious job running the territory over the past 16 years, but they have no opportunity to change their leaders, and so they’re stuck with this unpopular, ineffective government.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-timed-attack-deliberately-now-151255255.html