On 7th October (Saturday), Israel came under one of the worst attacks in recent history after dozens of Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Additionally, Palestinian terrorists also launched massive rocket barrages at southern and central Israel from the Gaza Strip prompting it to declare a ‘state of war’.
The terrorists also held several Israelis hostage including women, children, and the elderly. They have killed several civilians in indiscriminate firing and videos of the incident doing rounds on the internet reveal that they had also paraded women bared and bruised on the streets of Israeli towns.
Following the terrorist attack on Israel, Palestinian Islamic Movement, Hamas claimed responsibility for these attacks. In a rare public statement, the leader of the military wing of Hamas, Mohammed Deif announced that it has launched a new military operation against Israel.
Mohammed Deif added that 5,000 rockets had been fired into Israel early Saturday to begin “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and provoked all Palestinians to fight. It is important to note that Deif’s provocation was delivered in a recording as he has been in hiding after surviving multiple assassination attempts.
On its part, Israeli forces have started retaliation and are fighting to regain control of areas captured by the Hamas terrorists.
Amidst this, here is a brief overview of everything about this outfit1 Hamas, including its genesis, its supporters, and how it draws funds to attack Israel.
Hamas: Emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region
Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, which means “Islamic Resistance Movement” in English. It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin who was a Palestinian cleric. After doing Islamic scholarship in Cairo, he was associated with the local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the 1960s, Yassin preached religious sermons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Subsequently, in December 1987, Yassin established Hamas as the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. This came in the backdrop of the first intifada – Palestinian attacks against Israel for alleged atrocities in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
Initially, Hamas believed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was a threat to the Muslim Brotherhood so it did everything to ‘counter’ it. In 1988, Hamas published its charter which called for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine.
Since April 1993, Hamas has been carrying out suicide bombings. The first reported bombing was done five months before PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords.
The historic accord led to the establishment of limited self-government for parts of the West Bank and Gaza. A new entity called the Palestinian Authority (PA) was created for this purpose. However, Hamas condemned and tried to derail these developments towards peace. It also condemned the PLO’s and Israel’s recognition of each other.
Later, in 1997, the United States designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organisation as it went on to spearhead violent resistance during the second intifada, in the early 2000s. Hamas’s founder, Yassin was killed by Israeli forces in 2004.
Hamas controls the Gaza Strip since 2006
Apart from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hamas is the other major outfit in Palestinian territories. Since 2006, the Islamist outfit Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip. Back then, it defeated its rival political party, Fatah, in elections but after that, there hasn’t been any election in the Palestinian enclave.
It is notable that the Palestine state is divided into two territories, the Werst Bank on the east of Israel, and the Gaza Strip on the west. While Hamas governs Gaza, the governance of the West Bank, the much larger territory bordering Jordan and the Dead Sea apart from Israel, is complicated. While the West Bank is generally under the occupation is Israel, there are a large number of Palestinian enclaves that are under total or partial control of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
While anti-Israel sentiments prevail in the entire Palestinian state, this sentiment is strongest in the Gaza Strip, which is under Hamas rule.
Gaza Strip is a 41km-long and 6-12 km-wide territory between Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea. It has one of the highest population densities in the world with a population of about 2.3 million people. Israel exercises control over the airspace above Gaza and its coastline, regulating the entry and exit of people and goods through its border crossings. Likewise, Egypt governs the passage of individuals into and out of Gaza through its border.
According to the UN, almost 80% of the Gazans depend on international aid, and about one million people rely on daily food aid. However, it is often reported that millions of foreign aid and funds from like-minded countries were funneled to anti-Israel activities including terror attacks.
In fact, Hamas which is ‘governing’ the Gaza Strip is notorious for launching attacks, and suicide bombings on Israel. Notably, dozens of nations, including Israel, the United States, and the European Union as a bloc, have classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation, particularly its military wing, due to its involvement in suicide bombings and acts of terror directed against Israel.
Organisational structure of Palestians’ Islamist outfit Hamas
Hamas has several bodies that perform various political, military, and social functions. There is an overarching consultative body referred to as the politburo. It operates in exile and sees the ‘General policy’ of the outfit. The grassroots issues in Gaza and the West Bank are seen by the local committees of Hamas. Since June 2021, Gaza’s de facto prime minister is Issam al-Da’alis.
Whereas, Ismail Haniyeh is the political head after he replaced longtime leader Khaled Meshaal in 2017. Since 2020, he along with other Hamas leadership has been operating from Doha in Qatar because Egypt limited his movement into and out of Gaza.
Previously, Syria used to host Hamas leadership, but it had a fallout with Syrian authorities after the Palestinian refugees participated in the 2011 uprising that preceded the Syrian Civil War. Meanwhile, some of the Hamas leadership has an office in Turkey and they reportedly operate from there.
Meanwhile, Yahya Sinwar who served twenty-two years in an Israeli prison for masterminding the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers sees ‘day-to-day’ affairs in Gaza. He was released from prison along with more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held by Hamas terrorists.
Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is commanded by Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif. It is important to note that the responsibility for recent terrorist attacks on Israel was taken by Deif stating that Hamas has carried out ‘Operation Al-aqsa storm’.
The founder of Hamas military wing, Salah Shehadeh was assassinated by the Israeli forces in a 2002 air strike.
Hamas operates from Lebanon which is reportedly headed by Saleh al-Arouri. He also took over Hamas’ West Bank leadership after internal elections in 2021. Hamas maintains close ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Benefactors of Hamas
Hamas is a designated terrorist entity and for this reason, it is barred from getting official assistance that the United States and European Union (EU) provide to the PLO in the West Bank. Apart from funding from Palestinian expatriates, private donors in the Persian Gulf, and Islamic charities in the West, Hamas reportedly gets financial and other support from Iran, Turkey, and Qatar among other Islamic nations.
Iran is one of the biggest benefactors of Hamas as it contributes funds, weapons, and training to fight a proxy war against Israel. Iran pumps funds to the tune of $100 million annually to Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian outfits designated as terrorist organisations by the United States.
However, during the Syrian civil war, Iran and Hamas had a brief fallout with each other.
Qatar also provides hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to Gaza through Hamas. However, foreign aid generally reaches Gaza via the PA and UN agencies.
Earlier, Hamas amassed funds to the tune of $12 million per month from taxes on Egyptian goods imported or smuggled into Gaza through tunnels. Gaza shares a 12 km long border with Egypt on its south. However, in 2013, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi assumed power. Since then, Cairo has ended Hamas’s operation as it asserts that Hamas is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Afterwards, the Egyptian military closed down the majority of tunnels that were crossing into its territory. This action took place during their campaign against a faction affiliated with the self-declared Islamic State on their side of the border, within the Sinai Peninsula.
Additionally, Turkey is another backer of the Hamas particularly after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose to power in 2002. Though it claims that it backs Hamas only politically, Ankara has been accused of funding Hamas’s terrorism, including through aid diverted from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.
Hamas vis-a-vis Palestinian Authority
Hamas has been in control of Gaza since Israel’s withdrawal from the territory in 2005. In the subsequent year, Hamas got a majority of seats in the PA’s legislative body and established a government. It is claimed that Palestinians believed that Fatah’s leadership had become corrupt during its tenure within the PLO and had achieved limited progress in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations which resulted in Hamas getting the majority, after which it has never conducted an election. Since 2006, Palestinians have not voted for a legislature, nor for a president since 2008.
However, Fatah rejected the outcome of the elections and the party ousted Hamas from power in the West Bank. While in Gaza, Hamas hunted down Fatah’s militias to extend its authoritative control.
In theory, Hamas follows the Sharia-based Palestinian Basic Law, as does the PA. However, Hamas is notorious for implementing an extreme version of Sharia, including controlling how women dress and enforcing gender segregation in public during the early years of its rule.
It has repressed media, civilian activism on social media, the political opposition, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Gaza who argue that more focus should be diverted towards the welfare of Gazans than launching terror attacks on Israel.
Hamas carries out recurrent terror attacks on Israel
Hamas has been firing a spree of rockets and mortars into Israel after it took over Gaza. Iranian security officials admitted that Tehran provided some of these weapons. However, after getting training from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and proxies, Hamas has been building its own missiles as well.
Additionally, Hamas has been dropping hundreds of balloons laden with inflammatory substances and explosives, along with rockets on Israeli territories causing indiscriminate death and destruction to civilians. Israel has responded fiercely and unsparingly against the continued provocation, with persistent airstrikes and tank fires on locations described by it as Gaza’s military infrastructure installations.
Hamas has also launched incursions into Israeli territory, and it is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks including the recent one which is still ongoing. One of the most infamous incidents occurred in 2006 when they kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. In exchange for Shalit’s release, Israel released more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, including Sinwar. Additionally, in 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of abducting and killing three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.
