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Dec 30, 2019 · The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh quoted PLO Executive Committee member Azzam al-Ahmed as telling the PA’s Voice of Palestine radio station that “the cooperation between Israel and Hamas...
2 days ago · Power in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the so-called Palestinian territories, has been divided among three entities: a governing body called the Palestinian Authority, the militant group...
Oct 10, 2023 · Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (in English, Islamic Resistance Movement), was designed to provide an “Islamic alternative to the nationalist and...
- Introduction
- What Are The Group’s Origins?
- Who Are Its Leaders?
- How Is Hamas Funded?
- Does Foreign Aid For Gaza Go Through Hamas?
- How Has Hamas Governed Gaza?
- How Has Hamas Challenged Israel?
- How Was Hamas’s Attack on Israel in 2023 Different?
- How Do Palestinians View Hamas?
- What’s Next For Hamas?
Hamas is an Islamist militant movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades. It also violently rejects Israel’s existence. In October 2023, Hamas infiltrated southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking dozens more hostage. In response, the Israeli military has attempted to eradicate the group, an effort that had repor...
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who became an activist in local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood after dedicating his early life to Islamic scholarship in Cairo. Beginning in the late 1960s, Yassin preached and performed charitable work...
Hamas has a host of leadership bodies that perform various political, military, and social functions. General policy is set by an overarching consultative body, often called the politburo, which operates in exile. Local committees manage grassroots issues in Gaza and the West Bank. Ismail Haniyeh currently serves as political chief, having replaced...
Historically, Palestinian expatriates and private donors in the Persian Gulf provided much of the movement’s funding. Today, Iran is one of Hamas’s biggest benefactors, contributing funds, weapons, and training. Though Iran and Hamas briefly fell out after backing opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, Iran provides some $100 million annually [PDF] t...
Before the current war, Israel allowed Qatar to provide Gaza with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual assistance through Hamas. But foreign aid generally reaches Gaza via the PA and UN agencies, namely the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), though Hamas has reportedly diverted some of this aid. As a de...
Hamas became the de facto authority in Gaza shortly after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The following year, Hamas won a majority of seats in the PA’s legislature and formed a government. It earned votes for the social services it provided and as a rejection of the incumbent Fatah, which many voters perceived as having grown corrupt at...
For decades, Hamas’s attacks on Israel mostly involved rocket and mortar strikes, mass shootings, and suicide bombings. Iranian security officials say that Tehran has provided Hamas with some weapons, but that Hamas gained the ability to build its own missiles after training with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and proxies. Israeli ...
Hamas’s 2023 assault on southern Israel, “Operation al-Aqsa Storm,” was extraordinary in its strategy, scale, and secrecy, analysts say. It began early on October 7, the Jewish Sabbath and an important Jewish holiday, with Hamas launching several thousand rockets into southern and central Israel, hitting cities as far north as Tel Aviv. Hamas milit...
Palestinian opinions of Hamas are mixed. Before October 7, the group hadbeen unpopular [PDF] in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, though Palestinians in both territories preferred Hamas to other political factions. Many experts say that PA President Mahmoud Abbas canceled the 2021 Palestinian national elections to prevent a likely Hamas victory. After ...
Israel is seeking to eradicate the group and free around 130 hostages still held in Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of a “long and difficult war.” After the first five months of fighting, the Israeli military had “certainly done considerable damage to Hamas, which is no longer capable of firing rockets into Israel and has seen ...
Oct 10, 2023 · Hamas won 2006 parliamentary elections elections and in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The...
Oct 8, 2023 · 8 Oct 2023. The Palestinian armed group Hamas on October 7 launched a surprise attack into Israel in one of the most serious escalations in the Israel-Palestinian conflict in years. Hamas...
Oct 12, 2017 · While the two groups work towards the same goal of building a Palestinian state on the territories that Israel occupied in 1967, consisting of East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,...
