Hamas

Overview

Hamas, an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization founded in Gaza in 1987. It combines a political apparatus, social institutions and an armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. Its founding covenant calls for the destruction of Israel, and its forces have carried out suicide bombings, rocket attacks, shootings, abductions and massacres of civilians. Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007 and built a governing system alongside its military infrastructure. Its leadership has also maintained networks abroad, particularly in Qatar and Turkey.

Hamas emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood during the First Intifada. Its dispute with Fatah has concerned political leadership, control of security forces and the use of violence against Israel. Hamas’s 2006 legislative election victory preceded its armed seizure of Gaza from Fatah the following year. It then governed the territory while preparing for repeated wars with Israel, investing in rockets, tunnels and armed units embedded in densely populated areas.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a coordinated assault from Gaza, murdered Israeli civilians and took hostages. The attack began the Gaza war and a prolonged hostage crisis. Israeli operations severely damaged Hamas’s forces and leadership, but the organization retained armed members and parts of its governing network. Whether Hamas disarms and relinquishes coercive power remains central to proposals for Gaza’s postwar administration.

Founding and ideology

Hamas grew out of Muslim Brotherhood institutions established among the Arabs of Gaza. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, its spiritual leader and a founder, registered an Islamic association in Israel in 1978. The association developed welfare and religious networks and gained influence through mosques. During the uprising that began in 1987, Brotherhood leaders including Yassin formed Hamas as an organization committed to armed confrontation with Israel. Its social work helped it recruit supporters, while its new political and military program distinguished it from organizations seeking a negotiated settlement.

Hamas published its covenant in August 1988. It rejected Israel’s continued existence and made jihad central to its program. Jihad means struggle or effort; the covenant’s call for armed jihad concerns warfare against Israel. Article 8 presents the Quran as Hamas’s constitution and jihad as its path. The covenant also contains antisemitic ideas and treats the conflict as a religious obligation extending beyond ordinary territorial bargaining. Hamas’s attacks on Jews and Israeli civilians must be understood alongside that stated objective.

Hamas has sometimes presented narrower political proposals without abandoning its ultimate aim. A May 2017 policy document associated with Khaled Mashal discussed an interim arrangement along the lines preceding the 1967 war but did not recognize Israel. Such proposals affect Hamas’s tactical position; they do not erase its founding program or its record of attacks. Hamas belongs to the Sunni tradition of Islam, but its governing project and armed program concern political Islam. Its actions and doctrines are those of a specific organization, not of Muslims as a whole.

Hamas leaders have continued to use religious language to justify violence. In 2009, Mashal said the fate of Jerusalem would be decided through jihad and armed resistance rather than negotiation. Hamas also invoked disputes around the Temple Mount during escalations in 2021 and 2022. These statements matter because they show how leadership connected immediate military decisions to a longer ideological campaign.

History

Hamas developed its armed operations during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its Al-Qassam Brigades became the organization’s principal military wing, building cells capable of shootings, explosives attacks and later rocket fire. Hamas opposed the Oslo Accords and competed with Fatah and the PLO for leadership among the Arabs of Gaza and Judea and Samaria. In 1994, Hamas began a campaign of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Further attacks in the mid-1990s, including bus bombings in Jerusalem in 1996, killed scores of people and damaged public support for the diplomatic process.

Rivalry with Fatah intensified as each movement sought political legitimacy and control of armed forces. Talks in Cairo in 2002 and 2003 failed to persuade Hamas to end attacks on civilians. During the Second Intifada, Hamas expanded its bombing and shooting operations. On August 31, 2004, suicide bombers sent by a Hamas network in Hebron attacked buses in Beersheba, killing 16 people and injuring about 100. Hamas also developed local networks in Judea and Samaria that trained operatives, gathered intelligence and assembled explosives.

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government removed all Jewish communities from Gaza and withdrew Israeli forces. Hamas continued firing rockets and carrying out attacks against Israeli communities after the withdrawal. Its 2006 legislative election victory gave it a claim to lead governing institutions, but it did not end its armed campaign or its struggle with Fatah. In June 2007, Hamas violently seized power in Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Fatah–Hamas unity government and formed an emergency government in Ramallah. Hamas subsequently consolidated control over Gaza’s security bodies, border access and public administration.

Hamas’s rule did not end confrontation with Israel. Major rounds of fighting followed in 2008–2009, during the 2014 Gaza War, and in 2021. Rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities helped drive Israel’s decision in 2007 to develop Iron Dome. Iranian support enabled Hamas to acquire longer-range rocket technology, eventually putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within range. During these years Hamas also expanded its underground network, increased domestic weapons production and preserved military capacity within the territory it governed.

Under Yahya Sinwar’s leadership in Gaza, Hamas pursued political influence beyond the territory while continuing its military buildup. Sinwar directed the 2018 Marches of Return protest initiative toward Israel. The organization used tensions in Jerusalem in 2021 as the setting for a military ultimatum issued by Mohammed Deif, a senior military commander. These episodes illustrated Hamas’s effort to present itself as a regional leader of armed opposition to Israel while maintaining its base in Gaza.

Structure and leadership

Hamas has political, military and administrative components. Its political leaders manage alliances, finances, public messaging and negotiations. The Al-Qassam Brigades organize recruitment, training, weapons production and operations. Hamas also built police and governing institutions after seizing Gaza. These components serve a common organization: political activity and civil administration have coexisted with preparations for attacks on Israel.

Leadership has been distributed between Gaza and external offices. Yassin founded and led the movement in its early decades. Mashal became a prominent political chief abroad. Ismail Haniyeh led Hamas politically and oversaw a period in which its rocket capabilities grew with Iranian backing. Sinwar became its leading figure in Gaza, while Deif directed major military operations. Saleh al-Arouri worked through networks outside Gaza and publicly identified Hamas’s armed wing as responsible for the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Jewish youths in Gush Etzion.

Hamas maintained a political headquarters in Doha. Senior figure Khalil al-Hayya operated from Qatar, whose contacts with Hamas were used in negotiations over Israelis held captive in Gaza. Hamas personnel and affiliated businesses also operated in Turkey. These foreign networks gave leaders access to funds, diplomatic contacts and places to work beyond Israel’s immediate military reach. They also complicated efforts to separate Hamas’s political representatives from the armed organization they represented.

Hamas’s leadership suffered major losses during the Gaza war, including Sinwar’s death in 2024. Loss of senior figures did not by itself dissolve local armed cells, financial channels or governing structures. The organization’s ability to replace commanders and operate through dispersed units has remained a central challenge in assessing its strength.

Funding and sponsors

The Islamic Republic of Iran has supplied Hamas with money, weapons, training and technical assistance since its early decades. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps helped develop capabilities that Hamas could manufacture or deploy in Gaza. Although Hamas is Sunni and Iran’s ruling regime is Shia, their shared campaign against Israel sustained cooperation across that divide. Hamas forms part of Iran’s wider Axis of Resistance, alongside organizations including Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad Movement.

Iranian support involved more than transfers of cash. Training, tactical guidance and weapons technology helped Hamas improve rocket range, military organization and operational independence. In May 2018, Sinwar described Hamas’s ties with Qasem Soleimani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as strong. In April 2023, Haniyeh met Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut to discuss coordination among groups backed by the Iranian regime. Iran’s regional supply routes also prompted Israeli operations against munitions facilities in Sudan between 2009 and 2012. A United States federal judge held Iran responsible in 2009 for its support in a Hamas terrorist murder of an American citizen.

Hamas has drawn support through foreign offices, businesses and charitable channels as well as state sponsorship. Qatar supported Hamas’s rule in Gaza and hosted its political leadership while serving as an intermediary in hostage negotiations. Turkey provided a setting for Hamas operatives and affiliated businesses. These arrangements helped Hamas sustain its organization beyond Gaza even when its local military facilities came under attack. Financial scrutiny therefore extends to both direct weapons support and channels capable of moving resources to Hamas-controlled institutions.

Attacks and operations

Hamas’s attacks have targeted Israeli civilians as well as soldiers. Its 1990s suicide bombing campaign established attacks on buses and other public places as a central tactic. Later operations included rocket fire from Gaza, cross-border raids, shootings and abductions. After Israel’s 2005 withdrawal, rockets continued to strike Israeli communities. During the opening phase of the October 2023 war, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement launched more than 5,000 rockets, most toward Israeli urban centers; Iron Dome intercepted many of them.

Hamas prepared its October 7 assault in advance. Before the attack, its fighters publicly rehearsed abducting soldiers and overrunning military posts; footage included a September 2023 exercise. On October 7, Hamas forces breached the Gaza border, attacked military positions and entered Israeli communities. They murdered civilians in homes, killed people fleeing the Nova music festival massacre, and carried out atrocities in communities including Be’eri and Kfar Aza. They abducted Israelis and others into Gaza. The massacre occurred 50 years and one day after the Yom Kippur War began.

Hostage-taking became a defining feature of the ensuing war. Hamas continued to hold Israelis taken on October 7 through 2024 and into 2025. It used captives as bargaining assets and, ahead of a 2025 operation in Gaza City, moved some into homes and tents above ground, exposing them to danger. Families endured prolonged uncertainty over whether relatives were alive. Negotiations involving Qatar and other intermediaries sought releases, while Israeli military pressure remained a means of constraining Hamas and recovering captives.

Within Gaza, Hamas constructed an extensive military tunnel network for movement, concealment, command and storage. Its fighters have operated in civilian clothing, hidden weapons in homes and used civilian buildings for military purposes. Hospitals and other protected facilities have also been used to conceal or support operations. Such tactics make fighters harder to distinguish from civilians and put Gaza residents at risk. Civilian deaths and destruction require attention to the circumstances of each operation, including Hamas’s placement of fighters and weapons among residents and Israel’s efforts to warn and evacuate noncombatants.

Hamas’s strategy has sought political effects as well as battlefield results. It cannot defeat Israel through conventional combat, but can try to preserve armed units, prolong fighting and increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as Gaza suffers. Its return to areas after Israeli forces withdrew, including Jabaliya in 2024, demonstrated the difficulty of securing lasting control without an alternative governing authority. The tunnels and dispersed cells made that problem more severe.

Designations and international status

Hamas is a terrorist organization designated by Israel, the United States and other governments. These designations reflect its record of deliberate attacks on civilians, hostage-taking and continuing commitment to armed violence. Its electoral participation and civil administration do not remove responsibility for those acts. The United States designated Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997, during its campaign of suicide bombings.

The October 7 massacre brought renewed international condemnation. Leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly condemned Hamas and backed Israel after the attack. Hamas’s foreign political offices nevertheless remained important in negotiations over hostages and Gaza’s future. Diplomatic contact for a specific negotiation does not change the organization’s responsibility for the massacre or establish that it has renounced violence.

Hamas’s relationship with Fatah and the PLO has remained unsettled. Talks over political participation have repeatedly confronted Hamas’s refusal to give up its armed wing. For Hamas, entry into broader institutions can preserve influence even if Gaza’s administration changes. Any arrangement that leaves its weapons, command structure and capacity to intimidate rivals intact would also leave it able to obstruct a new government.

Current status

Israel’s campaign after October 7 damaged Hamas’s organized formations, rocket capabilities, commanders and infrastructure. Hamas nevertheless retained armed operatives, foreign leadership networks and portions of its tunnel system. Analysis published in 2025 and 2026 described its efforts to rebuild military and governing capacity during pauses in fighting. These conditions make control on the ground, rather than formal titles alone, decisive for Gaza’s future.

Disarmament has therefore become a central issue in postwar proposals. Hamas has resisted surrendering its weapons, while Israel has demanded removal of its military capacity and destruction of tunnels and weapons-production sites. Proposals for an alternative Gaza administration depend on an authority able to govern without Hamas’s armed veto. Hamas’s survival as an armed governing force would allow it to recruit, rebuild and threaten another attack, even after severe losses. A durable settlement requires release of hostages, protection of Gaza’s residents and effective control over weapons and security institutions.