Yeah, possibly. In the West Bank militia groups have been fighting PA forces recently due to them harassing and killing militia men and generally assisting the IDF in the occupation. After the 2006 election the PA tried to oust Hamas from the Gaza strip and got violently expelled.
On the other hand, over the decades since 2006 Hamas has co-existed with lots of political movements in the Gaza strip and helped make sure their militias continued recruiting and exercising. It has been a politically repressive environment for sure, in large part because you can't survive as a political movement under occupation without developing a serious paranoia.
Hamas terrorizes Palestinians, threatening those who dissent with cutoffs from basic amenities and even certain death. All of the aforementioned militia have good reason to distrust PA, because PA is the recognized representative of the Palestinian people by every single country in the world. No country gives a shit about Hamas. When aid is delivered to WB or Gaza, it's delivered in the name of the PA, even if they have lost control over Gaza for so many years.
And why does Hamas oppose PA? Because their ideal government is one with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a designated terrorist organization in the West as well as every surrounding country in the Middle East.
One could argue that Hamas is the rightful representative of the Palestinian people. But is it really? Elections held in Palestine are often a sham affair, with threats and coercion abound. But even if they won with a resounding majority, the fact that Palestinians en masse chose to elect an organization that cuts their water supply to make rockets from pipes says a lot more about the kind of people Palestinians are, and why they shouldn't be supported too much (something which every Arab neighbour of theirs has figured out pretty much).
It's unclear what you mean by dissent. Before October 7th dissent was likely the majority political position in the Gaza strip, they weren't very popular. Suspected collaboration with the occupier or its affiliates has been dealt with harshly for sure, and to some extent this has hurt LGBTQ persons specifically since Israel likes to identify them and pressure them to become collaborators.
Hamas opposes the PA because they are collaborating with the occupier. The ikhwan movement is feared by regional dictatorships because it is relatively egalitarian, hence they designate them as a terrorist organisation. It's been decades since they stopped using political violence, IIRC they did before Hamas began using it.
Elections aren't often held in Palestine, so they can't often be anything at all. Abbas knows he'd be ousted if he called elections, so he won't. His buddies in Israel and the US also prefer that he stays in power, so they won't pressure him to call for elections either.
As for aid, it goes through Israel rather than the PA. Same goes for money, the palestinians aren't allowed to have their own currency or financial system. Israel enjoys having the ability to refuse to pay out taxes they collect, for example.
Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip, and in the West Bank it forbids palestinians to collect rain water through a rather nasty bureaucratic regulation while at the same time destroying or stealing wells. Under such conditions it's somewhat reasonable to use infrastructure to try to get rid of the occupier, don't you think? What would you do?
Probably recognize that 30 years of violent resistance only ever ends up harming me more, and strive to elect leaders that will opt for trying a truly peaceful approach. Instead of starting wars every few years with a far more powerful neighboring country, maybe... not starting such wars is a better idea.
- dealt with harshly -> torture and summary executions. Tied with a rope to a car and dragged through the streets. Thrown from a rooftop of a tall building. That sort of stuff.
- "Suspected collaboration with the occupier" -> being associated with the Fatah, PA, or just not doing what Hamas orders you to do in any civil or other matter. Basically any person that crosses Hamas members in any way. Think Mexican drug cartels hanging journalists from bridges and you won't be far off.
- occupation -> the existence of the state of Israel in any borders. occupier -> Israel.
- Gaza's occupation -> The blockade Israel imposed after Hamas took over Gaza by force and started launching attacks at Israel from Gaza. Please ignore the border with Egypt or Egypt's control over the Egyptian half of Rafah. Egypt doesn't exist. Waiting for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over there but in the meantime let's support ISIS in Sinai since an enemies enemy is my friend.
- "Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip" -> Israel supplies water, food, electricity to what is essentially an enemy state that attacks it continuously. Gaza has its own power station, it has a desalination plant, it has wells, and it can also get all these things from Egypt or use the international aid money it's getting towards becoming more independent. Nah- let's dig tunnels and build rockets. Think Ukraine supplying Russia with water, food and electricity. Or South Korea supplying North Korea.
You are right that Hamas would win an election. Even more so after Oct 7th. The Pro-Palestinian crowd does its best to pretend it ain't so. They artificially separate Hamas, who the Palestinians want to represent them, from the Palestinians. Palestinians are peace loving people that need to be protected at all costs and the Hamas are people from another planet that just happened to have landed in the midst. There hasn't been an elections since 2006 so Hamas is not the legitimate government of Gaza and so we can't treat the Gazans as a side to this war. Even Israel says the same thing, our war is not with the "Palestinians" our war is with Hamas.
