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We will leave them for dead." It was to Hamas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made this promise of annihilation. In the early hours of Saturday, October 7, the terror group made a surprise attack on Israeli territory. According to the latest count, more than 700 people have been killed and more than 2000,11 wounded on Israeli territory. What do we know about this organization, which is responsible for what many analysts call "Israel's <>/<>"?
To discover
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How did Hamas come about?
At the end of the 1960s, what would become Hamas was still the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip. The term "Hamas" is the Arabic acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement." Its founders – including the principal Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – were all trained in Egypt. They created a network of mosques, charities and schools in Gaza to spread political Islam for two decades. They thus compete with the hegemony of the nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), considered by Israel as the enemy to be defeated. Tel Aviv regards them almost kindly.
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Hamas was only founded in 1987 in the wake of the beginning of the first intifada," said Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. Its charter affirms that "the land of Palestine is Islamic land." It advocates the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian Islamic State. "Hamas has a few hundred people, several thousand operatives and tens of thousands of sympathizers in Gaza.
»Hamas is currently considered a terrorist organization by France, the European Union and the United States, but also by Canada and Japan. Other nations, such as Britain, Australia or Egypt, consider only the armed wing to be a terrorist organization. China, Arab-Muslim countries and even Norway do not see it as such.
Who are its leaders?
Hamas has a political wing and a military wing. The armed wing has been led by Mohammed Deif since 2002, following the death of its previous leader, Salah Shehadeh. Born in the Gaza Strip in 1965, Deif joined the ranks of the organization when it was created in 1987. The man is now Israel's No. 1 target. In August 2014, the IDF had already tried to eliminate it with an airstrike. His wife and daughter had been killed. But he had escaped, though badly wounded. He had both legs and an arm amputated and had lost the use of one eye.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi receives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on June 20, 2023. -/AFP
The Politburo has been headed since 2017 by 60-year-old Ismail Haniyeh. In 1993, he became the confidant of Hamas' spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, who died in March 2004 in an Israeli strike that targeted him personally. He was one of the leaders of Hamas' political takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and 2006. In the process, he became prime minister of the Palestinian Authority between February 2006 and June 2014, before becoming head of Hamas' political bureau. "We are on the verge of a great victory," he said Saturday night in a speech broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV, the terror organization's television channel.
How powerful is the armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades?
Chain of command, equipment, regiments, battalions... These brigades have all the makings of a small army. The forces of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades were estimated at 20,000 fighters, or six brigades with 30 battalions. The number of these "soldiers" could double in the event of mobilization.
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The operation launched on Saturday uses terrorist tactics, said David Rigoulet-Roze, a researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). "But it also takes the form of a comprehensive military operation requiring a very high level of preparedness: they attacked on land, sea and in the air, which requires planning over several months. It's anything but improvisation.
»A Palestinian youth covers his face in front of fighters from the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, during their anti-Israel military show in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, on November 11, 2019. SAID KHATIB / AFP
The al-Qassam Brigades also has a special unit, the Nuhba, which took an active part in Saturday's assault. These elite fighters have been specially trained to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea, by air (including through motorized gliders) and by land, passing through cross-border tunnels. They are trained to carry out raids to kidnap people or kill them.
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They areaccustomed to hostage-taking, says Jean-Charles Brisard. Over the weekend, the terror organization took "more than 100 prisoners," according to a tally released Sunday by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO). "This time around, their massive nature could allow Hamas to obtain mass releases or significant financial and political compensation.
»Read alsoHamas' attack on Israel: is the price of oil likely to soar?
What is Hamas' strategy?
Hamas' objectives are a reflection of its structure: both political and terrorist. On this last level, the organization's objective is very clear: to strike Israel to the point of total destruction.
Politically, Hamas has been able to establish itself as the dominant political force in the Gaza Strip, constantly playing the card of radical one-upmanship against Fatah, Yasser Arafat's party, accused of inefficiency and incompetence. In the early 2000s, Hamas took advantage of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, which had been targeted by Israel since the second intifada in 2000. Despite the repeated assassinations against its leaders (the assassinations of Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi in Gaza in 2004 by Israel were the hardest blows for the movement), the hydra of Hamas is constantly reconstituting itself.
The organisation finally took power after its victory in the municipal elections (December 2004) and the legislative elections (January 2006). It was at this point that Ismail Haniyeh became the head of an Islamist government. Little by little, Fatah was ousted. Relying on the pro-violent population of Gaza, Hamas is gradually establishing itself as the only real power in this territory, to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority.
Since then, Hamas' terrorist strategy has evolved. In 2006, ISIS announced an end to suicide bombings and replaced them with rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021... Since then, wars with Israel have followed one another, without the Palestinian Authority really having the means to intervene.
On the geostrategic level, a guideline is to try to isolate Israel and unite all the countries of the region against it, again relying on public opinion that is often more radical than their governments. The series of suicide bombings that began in 1993 was aimed at halting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process after the signing of the Oslo Accords. After Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority's crackdown on Hamas, an attempt to reach out to the movement failed, undermined by continued Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
In the same way, the barbarity unleashed by Hamas since Saturday is not without geopolitical ulterior motives. The organization hopes to derail the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia by putting pressure on Riyadh, which sees Saudi public opinion siding with Hamas.
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This time, I'm not sure it's a good calculation, David Rigoulet-Roze points out, some of these normalizations are already effective - Bahrain for example - and Mohammed bin Salman had said that the normalization of relations with Israel would not be held hostage by Palestinian causes. Above all, this operation is almost part of an Iranian destabilization program in the region, which is likely to worry Saudi Arabia and perhaps push it even further towards Tel Aviv, in order to benefit from Israeli military power, even if it has been shaken by the Hamas offensive.
»Read alsoGuillaume Tabard: "The refusal to condemn the Hamas attack, a red line crossed by the Insoumis"
Who is Hamas' backer?
Before its founding as such in 1987, Hamas was mainly funded by Saudi Arabia and Syria. Israel was not very worried about this, as it was not yet developing armed actions. Today, Hamas is mainly supported by Qatar and Iran.
Hence the proximity between Hamas and Hezbollah, or the "Party of God." Founded in 1982 in the wake of the conflict between Israel and southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is both a Lebanese Islamist party and paramilitary group, of the Shiite faith, based in Lebanon. Led by Hassan Nasrallah, the organization's spiritual father and political model is Ayatollah Khomeini. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is wholeheartedly supported by Iran, which sponsors organizations that support Israel's destruction.
Has Lebanon's Hezbollah tried to open a second front, in support of its "brothers" in Hamas? On Monday, Israel said that in addition to Saturday's attack from Gaza, several armed Hezbollah commandos had infiltrated their territory through southern Lebanon. Tel Aviv bombed a border village and claimed to have killed "a number of suspected militants." The organization had fired on Israeli positions the day before, but denied any involvement in the infiltration.
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Hamas is mainly supported by Qatar on the financial level and by Iran on the material level, Jean-Charles Brisard sums up, even if it is also financed by taxes imposed on borders and taxes on goods.
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