They are the de facto (and kind of de jure...) government of Gaza. Hell, they run the Health Ministry that provides a lot of the updates.

If this somehow ends with anything short of further subjugation and/or eradication, they will be "heroes". And they aren't going to lessen their hold on the Palestinian people.

My point was that regardless of their ability to do it, they were at one time the elected officials of the geographic location known as Gaza. They're obviously not a real government in policy and action, but they're the only thing that exists to even bear the term or concept of governance in the area.

There is no other group to be considered as the government, no matter how awful Hamas is at being a government of any variety.