What is Hamas? Here’s what to know about the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.

An unprecedented shock assault in southern Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, has led to an more and more lethal battle with no decision in sight.

Hamas launched its coordinated assault on southern Israel on October 7, firing rockets, invading Israeli cities and military bases, killing lots of of individuals, lots of them civilians, and taking Israelis hostage. Israel has retaliated with airstrikes in Gaza which have additionally killed lots of of individuals, together with civilians, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared battle on Hamas, gearing up for a potential ground invasion. More than 1,500 people have died on each side as of October 9.

Hamas, designated by many countries as a terrorist group, has been main armed resistance in opposition to Israel for many years and likewise controls one of many two main political events in Palestine. Although in style with some segments of Palestinian society, it stays extremely divisive in Palestine and has typically been at odds with extra mainstream Palestinian politicians.

Whereas it has somewhat moderated its militancy because it assumed the accountability of governing Gaza, it’s not clear what the longer term holds now that it has proven that it’s nonetheless keen to threat upsetting a serious Israeli army operation to attain its goal of Palestinian self-determination. Netanyahu, in the meantime, has vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas, seemingly with the target of lowering its ranks to a degree of impotence.

Israel’s counterattack is meant to point out “that it is going to be punitive partly for the sake of being punitive, and it is going to be aimed partially at destroying Hamas as a corporation,” stated Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and worldwide affairs at George Washington College. “It can undoubtedly affect Hamas as a corporation, but it surely’s unclear … how profitable it is going to be.”

Right here’s what it is advisable to learn about Hamas and its position within the newest eruption of combating within the Israeli-Palestinian battle.

What Hamas is and the place it got here from

Hamas was shaped in 1987 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group based in Egypt within the late Nineteen Twenties. Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (in English, Islamic Resistance Motion), was designed to offer an “Islamic different to the nationalist and leftist teams that then dominated the Palestinian scene in resistance to Israel,” Brown stated.

It rose to prominence throughout the first intifada, a Palestinian rebellion in opposition to Israeli occupation of the West Financial institution, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. That rebellion formally led to 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords, an settlement between Israel and Palestine to put the groundwork for the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, although that was by no means realized.

In 1997, the US labeled Hamas a terrorist group following its assaults, together with suicide bombings, on Israeli targets. Different international locations adopted swimsuit, although some, like New Zealand, have created a distinction between Hamas’s political wing and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, its army division, viewing the previous as authorized and the latter as a terrorist group. As a result of the US views the entire group as terrorists, it can’t have direct diplomatic relations with Hamas, that means any negotiations, together with any peace negotiations, the US would possibly need to maintain should be performed via a 3rd social gathering.

How did Hamas come to energy in Gaza?

The group received a majority within the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 over the secular Fatah motion, which has usually had higher relationships with Western actors. Established by the Oslo Accords, the Legislative Council was meant to have authority over all the occupied Palestinian territory — Gaza, the place the present battle is going down, in addition to the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem — however the 2006 election led to its demise.

The worldwide group refused to acknowledge the Hamas-led authorities, and Fatah refused to cede energy to Hamas completely. After the 2 events failed to succeed in a long-lasting power-sharing settlement, a quick civil battle broke out. Hamas defeated Fatah’s forces, and although the group’s democratically elected lawmakers had been expelled from the legislative council, it took management of the Gaza Strip whereas Fatah stored management of the West Financial institution. In Gaza, Hamas continues to support social services and govern 2.3 million individuals who have been topic to highly restrictive blockades by Israel and Egypt that made the supply of primary items and providers very restricted even earlier than Israel’s current counterattack.

The necessity to handle tens of millions of individuals modified Hamas, to some extent: “That accountability made it comprise ‘resistance’ and gradual with any Islamic agenda, but it surely at all times made clear that this was a brief consequence,” Brown stated. As an illustration, whereas Hamas scaled again its goals of destroying Israel in a 2017 proclamation that tempered its rhetoric, it has continued to clarify that it desires to finish what it calls a “racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist challenge” and take again a lot of the land that at present makes up the Israeli state.

Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel appears to be a raffle that it may someday achieve this. Brown stated that he thinks the strike, which noticed someplace between a few hundred and a couple thousand Hamas militants breach Israeli’s defenses, might have been an try by some in Hamas to “break the modus vivendi with Israel that had emerged through the years.” That established order noticed Israel violently contain Palestinian resistance in Gaza for years at comparatively little price to its personal folks. Hamas’s assault might have additionally been a response to the perceived alternative in Palestinian politics, with rising alienation and radicalization amongst youth, he stated.

Hamas stays a polarizing drive in Palestinian society. Whereas accessible information is proscribed, some research suggests that if a vote had been to be held just like the one in 2006, Palestinians would favor Hamas’s chief to the deeply unpopular chief of the Fatah faction. On the similar time, lower than a 3rd of Palestinians suppose the group deserves to symbolize them.

There has not been a possibility, nonetheless, for elections. As Vox’s Jonathan Guyer explained, “Palestinians residing in Gaza should endure an unrepresentative authorities which imposes some Islamic tenets and implements repressive policies in opposition to LGBTQ folks and abusive policies in opposition to detainees.”

“Palestinians are deeply divided,” Brown stated. “Some are members and robust supporters; some are sympathetic; some view it as problematic; some detest it. However most view it as a part of the nationwide material.”

Hamas’s present political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, and different Hamas leaders currently operate out of Qatar as a result of Egypt restricts their actions out and in of Gaza.

Hamas counts Iran as an ally, sharing an opposition to Israel and america’ position within the area. As Vox’s Ellen Ioanes reported, Iran has supported the event of Hamas’s rocket, missile, and mortar packages. It has additionally joined Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militant group primarily based in southern Lebanon, in offering funding, coaching, and intelligence to Hamas fighters.

However whereas Hamas has stated that Iran supported its October 7 attack on Israel, “Hamas isn’t Iran’s proxy,” and its management and political agenda are distinct, Brown stated.

Extra usually, the query of the place Hamas will get its funding is a bit sophisticated. A few of its cash comes from taxes collected on goods smuggled via the Egyptian-Israeli blockade; different revenue streams embrace non-public worldwide donors sympathetic to the group’s trigger, and international assist, which helps it present primary governmental providers. Past Iran, Turkey and Qatar have been suspected of offering monetary backing as nicely.

What Hamas desires

At its core, Hamas desires an unbiased Palestinian state, one which, based on its 2017 manifesto, would on the very least embrace the land Palestinians held in 1967, a place Israeli governments have lengthy stated is out of the query. It additionally desires higher political energy, each in Palestine and internationally.

“Its final purpose is the liberation of all of historic Palestine, however Hamas has declared its willingness to succeed in a long-term cease-fire with Israel in alternate for full withdrawal from the West Financial institution and Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian state,” Syracuse College Center Jap historical past professor Osamah Khalil informed Vox.

Hamas has a protracted observe document of utilizing armed resistance in an effort to obtain its goals, together with conducting violent cross-border raids by way of tunnels and capturing rockets throughout the Gaza border. And as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp has explained, there’s a sequence of things that will have contributed to Hamas’s resolution to strike now — primarily, issues the group desires to see stopped within the quick time period.

These embrace what the group described as Israeli settlers’ desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy web site close to websites additionally holy to Christians and Jews; Israeli settlers’ rising assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank; and a possible safety settlement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which might hurt Palestine’s bid for independence. Extra broadly, some experts have argued this assault was supposed to essentially shift how the world approaches Israeli-Palestinian relations — a present of drive and power by Hamas because it seeks to maintain the battle for Palestinian independence on the forefront of worldwide dialogue.

“Palestinian factions undertake operations like this one to maintain the Palestine problem alive and to forestall any exterior energy from chipping away on the quest for Palestinian sovereignty,” stated UCLA Center Jap historical past skilled James Gelvin. “That is what Saudi-Israeli normalization threatens to do.” Specialists have pointed to the potential Saudi deal, particularly, as a transfer that might have undercut Palestinians’ battle for statehood by additional legitimizing Israel.

Finally, Hamas is keen to keep up its personal energy and to maintain the battle for a Palestinian state a chief precedence for its allies overseas, together with Arab international locations like Qatar and Turkey. If Israel is launching brutal army assaults on Gaza and civilians, like those who killed dozens at markets, colleges, and hospitals on Monday, it makes it a lot more durable for different Arab international locations to normalize their relationship with the nation (although it additionally harms the people Hamas is meant to govern).

As a Hamas spokesperson told Al Jazeera, these assaults had been a decisive “message” to different Arab international locations that they need to not normalize ties with Israel.

The place do Palestine’s different political organizations, such because the Palestine Liberation Group, match into all of this?

One different factor Hamas desires is for its imaginative and prescient for Palestine to win out over that of its chief rival, Fatah.

Fatah, a reverse acronym for Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistiniya (in English, Palestinian Nationwide Liberation Motion), is a secular social gathering began within the Fifties that can be devoted to establishing an unbiased Palestinian state.

It’s at present the dominant social gathering of the Palestine Liberation Group (PLO), a bunch of 11 (largely now defunct) organizations that was created within the Nineteen Sixties partially to offer Palestinians a voice on the world stage. The PLO at present runs the Palestine Nationwide Authority (PA), which is a authorities of semi-autonomous areas in elements of the West Financial institution.

Fatah’s standing in Palestinian politics has been enormously weakened since its 2006 election loss to Hamas and subsequent infighting within the social gathering. The PA can be presently led by President Mahmoud Abbas — the top of Fatah — and has confronted important scrutiny for failing to carry democratic legislative or presidential elections since 2006. Abbas has taken actions to consolidate his energy within the absence of different elected lawmakers, additional together with lowering checks within the authorities’s three branches and cracking down on free speech.

Hamas and Fatah differ most notably of their strategy to recognizing Israeli statehood and of their strategy to advocating for a Palestinian state. Fatah acknowledges an Israeli state whereas Hamas doesn’t. Fatah additionally helps diplomacy in its quest for an unbiased Palestinian state, whereas Hamas helps armed resistance in pursuit of this purpose. Beforehand, Hamas was strongly in opposition to the Oslo Peace Accords the PLO struck unilaterally within the Nineteen Nineties which put a cease to PLO violence alongside an settlement for a two-state resolution. That deal additionally arrange the PA, which has tried and failed to succeed in a number of peace agreements with Israel.

“Hamas sees the Palestinian Authority within the West Financial institution as a corrupt consultant of the Palestinian trigger and are thought of political rivals, which has included combating between armed components of each side previously,” stated Javed Ali, a College of Michigan nationwide safety skilled.

Help for the PA amongst Palestinians has dipped in recent times because it has supplied restricted condemnation and response to Israeli violence, particularly ongoing settler violence that has seen Israelis take land by force. The PA has additionally suffered from weaker, growing old management — considered one of Fatah’s founders, Yasser Arafat, led the PA till his loss of life in 2004; Abbas, now 87, has been in cost since 2005.

That has led many Palestinians, particularly among the many youthful technology, to really feel that Fatah is out of contact, and it has allowed Hamas to develop its backing amongst some who help its extra aggressive give attention to an unbiased state.