Hamas

Overview

Hamas is a terror organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction and establishing an “independent Islamic state” in its place. It is formally known as The Islamic Resistance Movement.

The terror organization has three branches: political, military and social. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 and is also active in the West Bank. Some senior leadership are or have been harbored in Qatar, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

Hamas has used Gaza as a base to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, which Israel responded to with military operations in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014. Hamas has conducted suicide bombings, especially during the second intifada in the early 2000’s.

Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members, together with “religious factions” of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded Hamas in 1987, during the first intifada.

In its 2017 general principles statement, Hamas supported [Point 23] “Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine.” In its 1988 charter, it cited multiple anti-Semitic Koranic sources.

Hamas enjoys popularity within anti-Israel groups like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) as well as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Background

Hamas’s founding 1988 charter calls for Israel’s destruction, stating: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Hamas has rejected Arab negotiations with Israel, such as the Oslo Accords peace process.

The 1988 charter framed its “resistance” against Israel as part of a longer historic effort before the modern State of Israel was founded in 1948. The charter says: “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood...”

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Al-Qassam Brigades) was established in 1987 and officially became the military branch for Hamas in 1991. The Al-Qassam Brigades operate throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

Much of Hamas’s leadership live outside the Gaza Strip. In 1999, Jordan expelled Hamas’s leadership after accusing the group of using their offices in Jordan to command military activities in Gaza and the West Bank. The group’s leaders then established headquarters in Syria, where they were forced to leave after failing to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war. Hamas leadership then moved to Qatar.

Hamas reportedly provides a variety of social services, including schools, medical services, food and summer camps for children in Gaza and the West Bank. These services contributed to the landslide Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections, which covered Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas won an outright majority of seats, delivering a significant defeat over Fatah, the PLO’s largest faction.

From June 10-15, 2007, Hamas seized control over Gaza during violent clashes with Fatah.

In 2007, Israel and Egypt implemented a naval blockade over Gaza to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets from outside its territory. The United Nations approved the blockade in 2011. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.

In 2017, Hamas released its Document of General Principles and Policies without indicating if the new document replaced the 1988 charter. The new document has been described as “a minor change in tactics, not in its ultimate aims.”

The document was reportedly Hamas’s attempt to “connect with the outside world” since it did not contain the same anti-Semitic language of the 1988 charter and did not mention Hamas’s MB origins. The document confirmed [Point 20]: “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant Hamas leader Khaled Mashal uses to call for the dismantling of the State of Israel.

The 2017 document also demands the “Right of Return.”

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Designated Terror Organization

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organizationby Israel since 1989, the United States since 1997, the European Union since 2001, Canada since 2002 and Egypt since 2015. It was also designated as a terror group by Japan in 2008.

The Al-Qassam Brigades has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom since 2001, New Zealand since 2010, Australia since 2003 and Paraguay since 2019.

Hamas has been banned in Jordan since 1999. In 2020, Saudi Arabia tried 68 Hamas members for belonging to a “terrorist entity” and “supporting and financing a terrorist organization.”

Religious Fundamentalism

The Hamas slogan, which mirrors the MB slogan, is found in Article 8 of its founding charter: “Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”

The group views all of Israel and any territory it controls as an occupied “Islamic Waqf,” which must be “liberated” from non-Muslim “infidels” by force of arms and other means. The 2017 document of general principles, says: “Palestine is the spirit of the Ummah [Islamic nation] and its central cause; it is the soul of humanity and its living conscience.”

Hamas also monitors how women dress and enforces gender segregation.

Anti-Semitism

Official Hamas documents and prominent Hamas leaders have pushed anti-Semitism since its founding. The group promotes religious anti-Semitism and has repackaged historic anti-Semitic themes to advocate its cause.

In 2021, Hamas claimed on its English-language website that it does “not fight and resist the Israelis because they are Jews, but because they are occupiers,” emphasizing the group’s belief that Jews have no legitimate connection to the Land of Israel.

This belief is used by anti-Israel activists who portray Jews as foreign to the Land of Israel, attack Israel’s legitimacy and spread anti-Semitism by denying [00:17:45] Jewish history.

In 2019, Hamas official Fathi Hamad said [00:00:01]: “We must attack every Jew on the face of the earth, to slaughter and kill them with the help of Allah.”

Hamad also said [00:00:19]: “Our sisters are ready, they are all ready to carry the suicide vests on their way to Allah. We’ll force one or two cracks at each base, five breaches in all, and we will make it all the way to reach you. You are all doomed to be killed. With God’s help, you will all be killed by our suicide vests.”

Hamad continued [00:00:44]: “And you, people of the West Bank, for how long will you sit quietly? We want you to wield your knives. They cost only five shekels ($1.53) each. How much does a Jew’s throat need to cost us? Five shekels or less? Our men are ready to die and to breach the fence.”

In 2018, Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan said [00:00:32]: “Do you know who the apes and pigs are? They are the Jews who Allah transformed into apes and pigs.”

In 2017, Hamas released its document of general principles which said: “11. The blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs exclusively to our people and our Ummah, and the occupation has no right to it whatsoever. The occupation’s plots, measures and attempts to judaize Al-Aqsa and divide it are null, void and illegitimate.”

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state. Such propaganda served as the excuse for an upsurge in Palestinian violence that flared in the fall of 2015 and incited Palestinians to attempt mass casualty attacks on Israeli civilians in July 2016.. 

The same 2017 charter said that the “Judaization” of Jerusalem was one of several “measures undertaken by the occupiers” to attack the city: “10. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. Its religious, historic and civilizational status is fundamental to the Arabs, Muslims and the world at large. Its Islamic and Christian holy places belong exclusively to the Palestinian people and to the Arab and Islamic Ummah.”

The same 2017 charter also said: “19. There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, Judaization or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate. Rights never lapse.”

In 2009, Hamas sent a letter to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) criticizing its proposal to teach the Holocaust in UNRWA’s Gaza schools. The letter said: “We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists.”

Up until 2005, Hamas had reportedly referred to Jews as “‘blood suckers,’ ‘brothers of apes,’ ‘killers of the prophets,’ ‘human pigs,’and warmongers ‘the descendants of treachery and deceit,’ ‘butchers.’” Hamas has also said regarding Jews that “‘Deceit and usury are stamped in their nature,’ and they are all ‘thieves, monopolists, and usurers.’”

In 2000, Hamas issued a press release in opposition to a Holocaust conference in Sweden. The press release reportedly said: “This conference bears a clear Zionist goal, aimed at forging history by hiding the truth about the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis. . . . The invention of these grand illusions of an alleged crime that never occurred, ignoring the millions of dead European victims of Nazism during the war, clearly reveals the racist Zionist face, which believes in the superiority of the Jewish race over the rest of the nations.”

The 1988 founding charter declares: “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes Hamas’s 1988 Charter as “replete with anti-Semitism,” adding that it echoes the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic fabricated text that depicts wealthy Jews conspiring to take over the world. 

Anti-Semitic ideas and conspiracy theories from the Charter include:

• “In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all. They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were the worst war criminals. Deportation from the homeland is a kind of murder.”

  
  

• “With their money, they [Jews] took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.”

  
  

• “The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.’ (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).”

  
  

Hamas receives most of its funding from foreign governments, such as Iran. The group has also received aid and pledges of support from Qatar, Syria, Turkey and North Korea. Saudi Arabia contributed “over half of Hamas’ $50 million annual budget” in the early 2000’s, but began cutting aid due to American pressure in 2004.

In the 1980’s, ten percent of Hamas’s funding initially came from Iran, “increasing to $30 million annually in the 1990s.” Following Hamas’s 2006 PLC elections victory, Iran provided between $17 to $20 million per month. In 2011, Iran and its ally Syria cut financial support after Hamas failed to back the Syrian government in the Syrian Civil War.

In 2015, Iran restored a high level of financing, specifically for the al-Qassam brigades, reconstruction of terror tunnels and restocking missiles. As of 2018, Iran gave Hamas between $70 to $100 million annually. In 2019, Iran increased its support to $30 million monthly in exchange for “intelligence on Israeli missile capabilities.”

In 2018, Hamas Deputy Chief Saleh al-Arouri reportedly said: “Iran is the only country that says that entity [Israel] is cancerous and should be uprooted from the region...It is the only country that is prepared to provide real and public support to the Palestinian resistance and others to confront the entity.”

Qatar has also donated significant funds to Hamas. In 2014, Qatar donated $30 million for Hamas to pay employees, who had not been paid in months. In 2018, Qatar made another donation of $90 million to pay civil servants.

Hamas has also raised money in America through charitable and cultural front groups, most notably the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).

HLF was a U.S.-based charity where five of its officials were indicted for funneling funds to Hamas in the guise of humanitarian aid. The men were all convicted and sentenced in 2009 to federal prison terms ranging from 15 to 65 years.

Hamas also uses its terror tunnel network between Egypt and Gaza to provide it with a flow of tax revenue on smuggled goods. The terror group uses cryptocurrency to raise money in an effort to bypass international sanctions.

Terrorism

Hamas has been responsible for many terror attacks against Israelis. Hamas used suicide bombings throughout the 1990’s and the early 2000’s during the second intifada. It pays the families of suicide bombers through its “martyrs fund.”

The second intifada (2000-2005) was characterized by more than 120 suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses and in cafes.

Hamas military commander, Abdullah al-Barghouti was sentenced to serve 67 life sentences for his significant role in multiple terrorist attacks, including the Sbarro Cafe Bombing of 2001, which murdered 15 people and wounded more than 120.

Since the mid-2000’s, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at Israel from Gaza. The unrelenting rocket attacks have led to three Israeli operations against the group.

Israel commenced Operations Cast Lead (OCL), Pillar of Defense (OPD) and Protective Edge (OPE) in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014 respectively, in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians.

During OPE, Hamas fired rockets from civilian structures like Shifa Hospital. Hamas's deployment of human shields during OPE and before has been extensively documented and publicized. Hamas encouraged Gazans to act as human shields to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas rockets have also been found in United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) schools on numerous occasions.

Israel launched OPE to destroy Hamas tunnels running from Gaza into Israel, which are intended for mass murder and taking Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage. Hamas has used its tunnels to attack Israeli military and to kidnap Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, who they exchanged for 1,027 jailed terrorists in 2011. Hamas has also held Israeli civilians hostage despite being non-combatants.

Hamas has also worked with Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in attacking Israel.

Hamas War Crimes of October 7, 2023

Leading Gaza Border Riots

On March 30, 2018, some 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza approached Israel’s border to take part in “Land Day Protests” or the “March of Return.” The March of Return

was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.

March participants sent scores of kites bearing explosive devices across Israel’s border to burn Israeli crops and homes. Participants also attempted to breach the border fence, which caused the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with live fire.

Agitators threw Molotov cocktails, firebombs, shot firearms and threw rocks under the cover of smoke from burning tires.

On May 16, 2018, a Hamas senior official stated that 50 out of 62 protesters killed during a May 14 protest were Hamas operatives. PIJ claimed that three of its members were killed at the same protest.

The violent riots continued through 2018 and 2019, accompanied by military-style attacks carried out by Hamas, PIJ and other terror groups. The violent riots included protesters using gunfire, penetrating Israeli territory, launching incendiary kites into Israel and throwing IEDs, hand grenades and molotov cocktails. Some of the attacks were carried out by Hamas operatives.

Leadership

Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin

Sheikh Yassin was a co-founder and the spiritual leader of Hamas. He also established the Al-Qassam Brigades and was an MB member. Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike in March 2004 in Gaza.

Yassin has supported suicide bombings, opposed the Oslo Accords peace process but also supported good relations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israel first arrested Yassin in the early 1980’s, but he was freed in a prisoner exchange in 1985. In 1986, he created the Majd, a division of Hamas meant to ensure that Palestinians follow Islamic law and do not collaborate with Israel.

Yassin was arrested again in 1989 but was released in 1997 in exchange for two Israeli Mossad agents who were detained in Jordan during a failed assassination attempt of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.

Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi

Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi was another Hamas co-founder who became the terrorist group’s leader after Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed. He was killed by Israel in April 2004.

Al-Rantisi was reportedly “instrumental” in organizing Hamas’s civil and welfare services. He was arrested multiple times by Israel, before being expelled in 1992. He was allowed to return the following year. Similar to Yassin, al-Rantisi supported “armed resistance” against Israel and opposed the Oslo Accords.

Yahya Ayyash

Yahya Ayyash was a former leader of the al-Qassam Brigades and was best known as the “Engineer of Death,” since he was the chief Hamas bombmaker during the mid-1990’s. He joined Hamas in 1992 while a student at Birzeit University, where he completed a degree in electrical engineering.

In 1996, Israel assassinated Ayyash. Thousands of people attended his funeral and mourners reportedly chanted “bloody vows of vengeance.” After Ayyash’s death, Hamas carried out numerous suicide bombings, killing almost 60 Israelis.

Khaled Mashal

In April 2004, Khaled Mashal assumed leadership of Hamas after al-Rantisi’s death. Mashal joined Hamas and became its Kuwait chapter leader immediately after the terror group was founded. He is a former MB member who has never lived in Gaza.

Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Mashal fled to Jordan in 1991 to lead the Hamas chapter there. He was then appointed the head of Hamas’s political bureau in 1996, in charge of fundraising and international relations and based in Amman.

Mashal’s appointment came after Yassin’s 1989 arrest by Israel, when Hamas aimed to find leadership outside of Israel’s reach.

Mashal survived an Israeli assassination attempt by Israel in Jordan in 1997.

Two years later, Mashal relocated to Qatar after Jordan expelled Hamas leadership. In 2001, Mashal relocated to Syria, where he lived until Hamas backed the rebels in the Syrian civil war, prompting Mashal to return to Qatar.

Mashal was succeeded by Ismail Haniyah in 2017, the same year he announced the terror group’s new Document of General Principles and Policies.

Ismail Haniyeh

Haniyeh, who was previously the deputy leader, has been the head of Hamas’s political bureau since 2017.

Haniyeh initially joined the Islamic Student Block, a precursor to Hamas, while studying at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he would later head the MB’s student chapter.

Haniyeh was arrested multiple times by Israel in the 1980s and was finally deported to Lebanon in 1992, along with other Hamas leaders. He returned to Gaza the following year and became an assistant to Sheikh Yassin.

He also served as Prime Minister of Gaza, after the terror group won PLC elections in 2006 and then forcibly expelled the Palestinian Authority (PA) from the territory in 2007. He resigned from the position in 2014 as part of a failed reconciliation agreement with the PLO.

In 2012, Haniyeh said of Israel: “[the] Gun is our only response to Zionist regime [sic]. In time, we have come to understand that we can obtain our goals only through fighting and armed resistance and no compromise should be made with the enemy.”

During the “Knife Intifada,” Haniyeh declared a “‘day of rage... a day that will represent that start of a new Intifada in all the land of Palestine.’”

Fall 2015 saw an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” saw young Palestinians throughout the country stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians.

In 2020, Haniyeh spoke at the funeral of Qasem Soleimani, “signaling that Hamas was attempting to restore its relations with Iran.” Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States, was a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and commander of its Quds Force, from 1998 until his death in 2020.

Soleimani also provided assistance to Hezbollah, assisted Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, was sanctioned by the United Nations and the European Union and designated a terrorist by the United States.

Previously, Haniyeh was one of the few Hamas leaders to live in the Gaza Strip. However, his trip to Iran infuriated Egypt, as they had only given him permission to leave the Gaza Strip on the condition that he not meet with the country. Egypt then refused to let him re-enter Gaza through the Rafah Border Crossing, forcing him to settle in Qatar.

Saleh al-Arouri

Al-Arouri is a Hamas leader and financier who is credited with renewing relations with Iran in 2018. He was also a founder of the al-Qassam Brigades.

In 2004, he was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury as a co-conspirator in a 15-year U.S. racketeering conspiracy to provide funding to Hamas.

Al-Arouri was first involved with Islamist groups while at Hebron University in 1985 and joined Hamas shortly after its founding. After joining the terror group, he started recruiting other students.

Al-Arouri has been arrested multiple times by Israel since 1990 and ultimately spent 15 years in prison in Israel. Al-Arouri was released in negotiations leading up to the “Shalit deal,” on the condition that he leave Israel. He went to Syria, which was then serving as a base for Hamas’s political leadership.

After Hamas fled Syria, |Al-Arouri settled in Turkey, where he created a Hamas bureau and coordinated the abduction of three Israeli teenagers in 2014.

Three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped from a bus stop on June 12, 2014. The abducted boys were murdered by their captors, and their bodies were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014. Al-Arouri claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of Hamas.

Also in 2014, he gained authority of the Hamas military in the West Bank and allegedly planned a Hamas coup against the PA. Turkey then expelled Al-Arouri in 2015 as part of a reconciliation agreement with Israel.

That same year, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Al-Arouri as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs)” for his role in Hamas as “a key financier and financial facilitator.”

Al-Arouri then moved to Qatar, who expelled him in 2017 and from there he went to Lebanon, where in addition to his regular Hamas activities, he worked to increase relations between Hezbollah and Hamas. In 2018, the U.S. government offered a $5 million reward for information leading to al-Arouri’s capture.

Mohammed Deif

Deif has been the leader of the al-Qassam Brigades since 2002 and has been on Israel’s most-wanted list for years. He is reportedly involved in every level of ordering, planning and carrying out terror attacks “to the last detail.” His mentor was Yahya Ayyash.

Deif joined Hamas shortly after its founding and has acted in Hamas propaganda videos. He was involved with the MB while at the Islamic University in Gaza.

Deif is credited with creating Hamas’s techniques for rocket launchings, suicide bus bombings, kidnapping soldiers and methods of digging terror tunnels. During OPE, Deif was responsible for launching attacks during ceasefires. He also “established a relatively secret, independent group of his own within Hamas’s military wing to carry out terror attacks.”

Deif has been arrested by Israel, as well as the PA and survived multiple assassination attemps, albeit with severe injuries. Deif is said to be a master of disguise, living among the general population of Gaza.

In 2015, Deif was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs)” for his role in Hamas.