History of Hamas


The history of Hamas is an account of the Palestinian nationalist and Islamist – described by some as fundamentalist – socio-political organization based in the Gaza Strip with an associated paramilitary force, the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas Ḥamās is an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement".
Hamas was established during the First intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987, and has its origins in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement, which had been active in the Gaza Strip since the 1950s and gained influence through a network of mosques and various charitable and social organizations. In the 1980s the Brotherhood emerged as a powerful political factor, challenging the influence of the PLO, and in 1987 adopted a more nationalist and activist line under the name of Hamas. Hamas was initially discreetly supported by Israel as a counter-balance to the secular PLO. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the organization conducted numerous suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel.
In the Palestinian legislative election of January 2006, Hamas campaigned on armed resistance against the Israeli occupation and gained a large majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament, defeating the ruling Fatah party. After the elections, conflicts arose between Hamas and Fatah, which they were unable to resolve. In June 2007, Hamas defeated Fatah in a series of violent clashes, and since that time Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories, while at the same time the unity government of which they formed a part in the West Bank was dissolved by the Palestinian Authority. Israel and Egypt then imposed an economic blockade on Gaza and largely sealed their borders with the territory.
After acquiring control of Gaza, Hamas-affiliated and other militias launched rocket attacks upon Israel, which Hamas ceased in June 2008 following an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. The ceasefire broke down late in 2008, with each side accusing the other of responsibility. In late December 2008, Israel attacked Gaza, withdrawing its forces in mid-January 2009. Since 2009, Hamas has faced multiple military confrontations with Israel, notably the 2012 and 2014 Gaza Wars, leading to substantial casualties. Hamas has maintained control over Gaza, often clashing with the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah. Efforts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah have seen limited success. Hamas has continued to face international isolation and blockades, while engaging in sporadic rocket attacks and tunnel construction activities against Israel. In 2023, Hamas launched the October 7 attack on Israel, starting the ongoing Gaza war.

Family origins outside the Gaza Strip

Most of the founding members of Hamas, and most of the current leadership, were born in Mandatory Palestine but outside of the Gaza Strip, or have parents who were.
In 1956, when he was eight or nine, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi witnessed the Khan Yunis massacre in the Southern Gaza Strip. During the massacre, al-Rantisi recalled that Israeli soldiers killed his uncle in front of him, in conversation with Joe Sacco he claimed this fact was very important for his future life.
Yahya Sinwar was born in 1962, in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, when the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian rule, where he spent his early years. His family were expelled from or fled from Al-Majdal Asqalan, now known as Ashkelon, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and sought refuge in the Gaza Strip. Sinwar, discussing his refugee upbringing, tied it to his Hamas involvement in conversations with fellow prisoners during his later imprisonment. According to Esmat Mansour, another inmate, Sinwar was deeply affected by the communal living conditions and food distribution in the refugee camp.

Early Islamic activism in Gaza

With its takeover of Gaza after the 1967 war with Egypt, Israel tolerated and at times encouraged Islamic activists and groups as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the PLO and its dominant faction, Fatah. Israel hunted down secular Palestine Liberation Organization factions, but dropped the previous Egyptian rulers' harsh restrictions against Islamic activists.
Among the activists benefited was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, who had also formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, a charity recognized by Israel in 1979. Israel allowed the organization to build mosques, clubs, schools, and a library in Gaza. Yitzhak Segev, the Israeli governor of Gaza in 1979, said he had no illusions about Yassin's intentions, having watched an Islamist movement topple the Shah as Israel's military attache in Iran. However, in conformity with the quietist approach characteristic of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, which unlike many Palestinian factions, did not boycott Israel's occupation of the Strip after 1967, and Yassin and his charity were considered "100% peaceful" towards Israel during this time. Segev maintained regular contact with Yassin, met with him around a dozen times, and arranged for Yassin to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment.
Also, Segev said, Fatah was "our main enemy." Islamists frequently attacked secular and leftist Palestinian movements, including Fatah, but the Israeli military avoided getting involved in those quarrels. It stood aside, for example, when Mujama al-Islamiya activists stormed the Red Crescent charity's headquarters in Gaza, but Segev did send soldiers to prevent the burning down of the home of the head of the organization.
In 1984 the Israeli army received intelligence that Yassin's followers were collecting arms in Gaza. Israeli troops raided mosques and found a cache of weapons. Yassin was arrested, but told his interrogators the weapons were meant to be used against secular Palestinians, not Israel. The cleric was released a year later and allowed to continue to develop his movement in Gaza.
Around the time of Yassin's arrest, Avner Cohen, an Israeli religious affairs official, sent a report to senior military officers and civilian leadership in Gaza advising them of the dangers of the Islamic movement, but this report and similar ones were ignored. Former military intelligence officer Shalom Harari said the warnings were ignored out of neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists, and said "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas." However, former Israeli officials have openly acknowledged Israel's role in providing funding and assistance to Yassin's network as a means of undermining the secular, left-wing Palestinian factions that made up the PLO. Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, who served as the Israeli military governor in Gaza during the early 1980s, admitted to providing financial assistance to Mujama al-Islamiya, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. Former Israeli Civil Administration director Efraim Sneh stated in 1992 that "we saw the fundamentalists mainly as an unthreatening social force aiming to improve the bad conditions and standards of living of the Palestinians... We know now that we must make a distinction between Hamas, with whom we have nothing in common, and the moderates, mainstream secular elements among the Palestinians." In 2018, historian Uri Milstein quoted Yitzhak Mordechai, who served as head of the Southern Command from 1986 to 1989, as saying that "I was very familiar with Gaza from my previous positions. But when I took charge of the Southern Command, I was shocked by the number of mosques that had been recently constructed in Gaza. As it turned out, Israel’s strategists had been supportive of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s charitable organization."

The founding of Hamas

Hasan and Sayedahmed cite multiple sources that say that Hamas was founded in the late 1970s as a religious counterweight to the secular Fatah. Other sources say that Hamas was founded by Yassin and six other Palestinians as an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood after Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver during the events that followed–First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The new group was supported by Brotherhood-affiliated charities and social institutions that had already gained a strong foothold in the occupied territories. The acronym "Hamas" first appeared in 1987 in a leaflet that accused the Israeli intelligence services of undermining the moral fiber of Palestinian youth as part of Mossad's recruitment of what Hamas termed "collaborators." Nonetheless, Israeli military and intelligence was still focused on Fatah, and continued to maintain contacts with Gaza Islamic activists. Numerous Islamist leaders, including senior Hamas founder Mahmoud Zahar, met with Yitzhak Rabin as part of "regular consultations" between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO.
Mary Elizabeth King wrote that the nonviolence of the First Intifada "neither lifted the military occupation nor stopped the implanting of Israeli settlements in lands set aside for the Palestinians by the United Nations. Nevertheless, the uprising's nonviolent sanctions achieved more than had decades of armed attacks on largely civilian targets.... Israeli agents provocateurs in Arab disguise... joined demonstrations and sought to incite demonstrators to use violence. The local committee prevented such provocations from instigating lethal escalations." The First Intifada disintegrated "into violence after Israel's incarceration, deportation, or discrediting of the very activist intellectuals who had sustained the uprising's nonviolent character".
Hamas carried out its first attack against Israel in 1989, abducting and killing two soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces immediately arrested Yassin and sentenced him to life in prison, and deported 400 Hamas activists, including Zahar, to South Lebanon, which at the time was occupied by Israel. During this time Hamas built a relationship with Hezbollah.
From 1987 to 1991, Hamas campaigned for the wearing of the hijab alongside other measures, including insisting women stay at home, be segregated from men, and the promotion of polygamy. In the course of this campaign women who chose not to wear the hijab were verbally and physically harassed, with the result that the hijab was being worn 'just to avoid problems on the streets'.
Hamas subsequently opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords, and refused to take part in the newly-formed Palestinian Authority. In the short-term, this opposition lead to a decrease in Hamas's popularity, as Palestinians inside the occupied territories broadly welcomed the Accords. In the long-term, however, according to Palestinian sociologist Jamil Hilal, Hamas "presented itself as the main opposition to the Oslo Accords and succeeded in becoming a major political force with the failure of the Oslo Accords to lead to a sovereign Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital."