GAZA - The Hamas police on Tuesday repressed a rally held in southern Gaza in protest of recent Israeli airstrikes against Syria, witnesses said.

The protest was organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Khanyounis city, the witnesses said, adding several participants were beaten and four journalists were detained by Hamas' forces on the grounds of holding unlicensed rally.

The demonstrators waved Palestinian and Syrian flags as well as banners slamming the Israeli bombing in Damascus, and chanted slogans rejecting "any Israeli aggression against any Arab capital".

Hamas, which took over the Palestinian enclave by force in 2007, had its supreme leadership based in Damascus for years.

When the Syrian unrest erupted in 2011, the Islamic movement refused to side with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and thus relocated its base to Doha, Qatar. Many leaders of the movement either returned to Gaza or moved to other Arab capitals.