Hamas

The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (an acronym from the Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian nationalist political organisation with a military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.

The Hamas movement was founded by Palestinian Islamic scholar Ahmed Yassin in 1987 after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It emerged from his 1973 Mujama al-Islamiya Islamic charity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially, Hamas was discreetly supported by Israel, as a counter-balance to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state. In the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas secured a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council by campaigning on promises of a corruption-free government and advocating for resistance as a means to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. In the 2007 Battle of Gaza, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah. It has since governed the territory separately from the Palestinian National Authority, and has been criticized for human rights violations. After Hamas's takeover, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. Egypt also began its blockade of Gaza at this time. This was followed by multiple wars with Israel, including those in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, and an ongoing one since 2023, which began with the October 7 attacks.