Hamas' military wing fired hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Saturday, October 7, after announcing the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The attacks left at least 70 people dead and several hundred wounded on the Israeli side, according to a toll that is expected to rise further.
The hail of rockets was claimed by Hamas, which carried out its largest offensive against Israel in several years. Created in 1987 after the start of the first intifada against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Hamas is a partial acronym for harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya, which means "Islamic resistance movement."
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Mainly active in Gaza, this movement created by three men from the Muslim Brotherhood is a protagonist of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and advocates the destruction of the State of Israel. It has been led since 2017 by the pragmatic Ismail Haniyeh, who succeeded Khaled Meshaal, who had led the movement since 1996.
Numerous suicide bombings until 2006
As soon as it was created, Hamas adopted a charter governing its functioning and principles and called for jihad against the Jews, the disappearance of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian Islamic State, and opposed any dialogue with the State of Israel.
While Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the 1993 Oslo Accords, which aimed to organize a peace process between the two states, Hamas is largely different from the PLO. The terrorist organization has rejected this agreement and regularly organizes ultra-violent actions against Israeli civilians, including several suicide bombings, the first of which was in April 1993. In 2006, Hamas announced that it would renounce such actions in order to fire rockets at Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip.
The signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat under the gaze of Bill Clinton in the White House. That was 30 years ago almost to the day. When there was still hope. A bygone era. pic.twitter.com/N2ySPzdK8x
— Théo Laubry 🇺🇸 (@TheoLaubry) October 7, 2023
Since 2006 and its victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, despite having previously refused to invest in Palestinian politics, Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip, a place from which clashes frequently take place, including four major battles in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021. In response to this victory, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade, which is still in place today.
An armed wing and a political wing
The European Union (since 2003), including France, as well as the United States and Canada consider Hamas a terrorist organization because of its violent actions against civilians. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, only classifies the group's armed wing as a terrorist.
Indeed, the organization has an armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and a political wing, which won the parliamentary elections in 2006 and created a strong rivalry with the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah. While the armed wing enjoys relative independence, it remains subject to the general strategies developed by the political wing.
While Hamas is labeled a terrorist organization by many, it has relations with several nations such as Turkey, Qatar and Iran. In fact, it is the latter country that offers it military, financial and political aid.