Hamas isn't just taking cash from Iran. It's imitating Iran's Dogophobia.
Walking dogs in public or driving them around in cars is set to be banned in Iran.
Now dog owners fear their pets will be 'arrested' if they are caught in public and they could also face a fine.
It is the latest attempted crackdown on dogs in the country, where the animals are viewed as unclean.
In 2011, authorities threatened to criminalize dog ownership and said the growing popularity of keeping the pets 'poses a cultural problem, blind imitation of the vulgar Western culture'.
Now Hamas is getting around to it in Gaza.
In the three weeks since Hamas announced the ban dog owners in Gaza have been forced to keep their pets indoors, often in small apartments with no air conditioning amid the rising summer heat.
Dogs are often thought of as unclean in Muslim societies and some clerics consider them to be haram - meaning forbidden - in Islam. One tradition says that if you touch a dog you must bathe seven times before you are clean again.
Mrs Shath said she thought the ban was part of a wider effort by Hamas to assert itself over society in Gaza. “They don’t want people to get busy with dogs, they want them to think only about politics, about resistance, to always be on and never to relax,” she said.
Islam has some issues with dogs. Mohammed called for killing them. And Dogophobia remains a serious problem in the Muslim world.
In Iran, visitors tell of dogs who could distinguish between Zoroastrians and Muslims; "In Sharifabad the dogs distinguished clearly between Moslem and Zoroastrian, and were prepared to go…full of hope, into a crowded Zoroastrian assembly, or to fall asleep trustfully in a Zoroastrian lane, but would flee as before Satan from a group of Moslem boys."
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the dog is still a particular object of Muslim hatred. In Tehran an Islamic judge sentenced a 70 year old man to four months in jail and thirty lashes for walking his dog. And the parliament is once again tackling a law to outlaw dogs for posing a "cultural problem".
This particular "cultural problem" has been exported with Islamic immigration as cabbies deny rides to the blind because their seeing eye dogs will keep angels out of their cabs. Blind passengers have been thrown off public buses by Muslim bus drivers and disabled people in all walks of life have faced harassment due to Islamic 'Dogophobia' which translates easily into bigotry against disabled people.
The "cultural problem" doesn't begin or end with dogs. One Hadith states; "When one of you prays without a sutrah, a dog, an ass, a pig, a Jew, a Magian, and a woman cut off his prayer." Along with Dogophobia, the teachings of Islam also cultivate Anti-Semitism and Sexism.
We need to make an effort