Our family flew on the newly established Palestinian Airlines into the newly created Gaza International Airport, using bright new Palestinian passports. There were Palestinian telecommunication companies, an industrial zone, a newly discovered gas field, the start of a seaport, new infrastructure and a growing financial sector, all hallmarks of a march toward statehood that the Oslo Peace Process, however flawed, had ushered in. Gaza, despite its complicated history, was a beautiful place that meant so much to my family — and it seemed that it was about to get even more promising.

But it was not to be. Four years after I met Sheikh Yassin, Israel pulled all its troops and settlements from the Gaza Strip. Two years later, in 2007, Hamas seized power after winning the first and last free and competitive Palestinian legislative elections the prior year.

Despite its posturing as an elite club, Hamas, from its inception, behaved like a mob of gangsters, brutalizing Palestinian women who violated its fanatic sense of morality, torturing and killing those who were suspected of opposing them and carrying out grisly suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, which weakened the Palestinian Authority and empowered the extremist right in Israel, which seized the opportunity to destroy hopes of a new Palestinian horizon or future.

Now, in the ruins of my once beautiful homeland, we are witnessing the coda of the group’s two decades of horrific rule. By agreeing in principle to a disarmament plan after their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and slaughter of hundreds of civilians led to over two years of Israeli bombardment that killed tens of thousands of Gazans, including much of my family, Hamas is acknowledging what Palestinian leadership knew 30 years ago: that only peace could lead to freedom and armed struggle was a disastrous strategy.

Hamas should have no role in Gaza’s future but, appallingly, so many in the West who consider themselves allies of the Palestinian people still see the group as honorable resistance fighters. Their support for, or failure to denounce, the group only helps perpetuate the degradation of Gaza.