Tensions between Hamas and Israel go way back.
Hamas has been at the forefront of current events ever since it launched its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, triggering a new war between Israel and the militant group. “Hamas has only one agenda, to destroy Israel and to murder Jews,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference in Israel following the latest conflict.
But Hamas is much more than this recent escalation, which has killed at least 1,400 Israelis and an estimated 2,329 Palestinians so far. As the conflict rages on, many are learning the backstory of this group and their tension with Israel for the first time. If you have questions, you’re not alone.
To paint a clearer picture of this clash, we’re breaking down what Hamas wants and why, with the help of two experts.
What is Hamas?
Hamas is a Palestinian nationalist and Islamist movement (its name stems from the Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya or the “Islamic Resistance Movement”).
The group was founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee living in Gaza, during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation.
Hamas didn’t seize control of Gaza until 2007, following its victory in the preceding year’s Palestinian legislative elections when it beat Fatah, the other dominant political party in the region. Fatah and the armed group it controls, the Palestinian Authority forces, then fled and were no longer able to provide security against potential attacks from Hamas. Yousef Munayyer, who’s a Palestinian-American writer and political analyst, says this prompted Israel and Egypt to tighten a naval blockade on the enclave, which restricted goods and people from essentially leaving.
“But there was a longstanding limitation on freedom of movement and entry into Gaza that predates Hamas’ takeover in 2007 and their electoral victory in January of 2006,” says Munayyer. “But at each of those stages, the siege tightens, so less and less gets into the Gaza Strip and over this time, and less and less gets out.”
Israel and Egypt, which both enforce a blockade on Gaza, say the restrictions are necessary to prevent terrorism, but it also ravaged Gaza’s economy, causing widespread hunger and poor living conditions. “More than 65 percent of the population of Gaza live below the poverty line, and more than 60 percent are unemployed,” Dr. Sami Owaida, who works at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme told the United Nations.
While Hamas was voted into power, a majority of residents who are living in Gaza today weren’t old enough to vote in 2007. Just like people — especially younger generations — in the U.S., they have mixed feelings about the way their country is currently ruled.
A June 2023 poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 73 percent of people living under Hamas rule believe the current government is corrupt, while a Washington Institute survey from the previous month said that 57 percent of Gazans held a “somewhat positive” opinion of Hamas. But there appears to be some growing dissatisfaction, with almost 50 percent saying they were hoping to leave Gaza entirely before Israel ordered an evacuation of the enclave during this recent crisis.
Even if Gazans did disagree with Hamas, the group has already shown little tolerance for dissent by arresting political opponents and suppressing protests against its regime.
What does Hamas want?
Hamas wants to destroy Israel and create an independent Palestinian state.
According to their 1988 charter, they state that they reject “any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — i.e., the annihilation of Israel. It also adds that “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” Hamas later issued a new policy document on top of its original charter, that included calls for “resisting the occupation with all means and methods.”
Hamas’ military wing carried out its first suicide attack in 1993, and over the years, it has fired tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel. It also built out a network of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt to smuggle weapons and carved out attack tunnels burrowing into Israel. This violence has prompted the U.S., the U.K., the European Union, Canada, and many other countries to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Hamas has said the latest attack was essentially the culmination of long-building anger over Israeli policy, including the recent expansion of Israeli settlements, outbreaks of bloodshed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and the general treatment of Palestinians.
Still, both the U.S. and the United Nations have made it clear that there’s no moral equivalence between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas. “I recognize the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “But nothing can justify these acts of terror and the killing, maiming and abduction of civilians.”
Who is leading Hamas?
Hamas is composed of different governing bodies that perform an array of political, military, and social functions.
That means it also has different figureheads. For instance, Ismail Haniyeh runs the political arm of the group, while Marwan Issa oversees the military wing. Yahya Sinwar is recognized as the main leader of Hamas — and he’s Israel’s top target.
Long considered a brutal enforcer within the group, the Israeli military refers to Sinwar as the “face of evil,” and believes he’s the mastermind behind the group’s harsh incursion in Israel. “That man and his whole team are in our sights,” Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said. “We will get to that man.”
What could make this especially difficult is Hamas has some serious allies. Iran and Turkey have been known to provide funding, training, and weapons to the group. (Iran has denied any involvement in Hamas’ brutal slaughter in Israel, but Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer said the country backed two top Hamas leaders responsible for planning it.)
“Hamas, like many organizations, is not just limited to the Gaza Strip,” Munayyer tells us. “They are a political movement as well as a voting group, so they have representatives in different countries and their own foreign relations network.”
How has Israel responded to Hamas?
Hamas and Israel have fought several wars since 2007, with the most recent one happening in 2021.
But in the lead-up to the brutal Oct. 7 massacre, Hamas was trying to throw Israeli officials off their tracks. “The idea for the longest time was that Hamas was lying low and wasn’t interested in another war,” says Guy Ziv, Ph.D., an associate director at American University’s Meltzer Schwartzberg Center for Israel Studies. “Those signals were an effort to mislead Israel.”
Prior to the attacks, Israel had been loosening the long-standing embargo and giving more work permits to Hamas — perhaps as an attempt to temper the group’s militancy, though it appears that these have since been revoked. Some blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for implementing these kinds of policies, which they believe emboldened Hamas. (Ziv also points out that Netanyahu allowed Qatar to transfer millions of dollars to Hamas-run Gaza in 2018.)
“Netanyahu’s policies have proven to be disastrous and complete failures,” he tells us. “When it comes to the Palestinian issue, he just ignored it.”
But there are also fears that the Israel-Hamas war could lead to a wider regional conflict in the Middle East, especially if the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah gets involved, which it has been threatening to do following the bombing of a hospital in Gaza City. “We’re closer to the brink of a major war in the region than we’ve been in years,” says Munayyer.
Still, he hopes this can be avoided by a more diplomatic approach to the conflict. “There has to be a way out of this that doesn’t involve killing all these people, and I think the only answer is a diplomatic one, and one that addresses the core problem, which has been there since 1948 and is the denial of freedom and basic rights for Palestinians.”
