The Islamist movement, founded in 1987 and in power in Gaza since 2007, has always refused to recognize the state of Israel and advocates an armed struggle against it.
The attack seems to have caught everyone by surprise. At dawn on Saturday, Hamas launched a massive, coordinated operation against Israel, killing at least 800 Israelis, wounding more than 2,400 others and taking around 100 hostages. Never before has this Islamist movement carried out an offensive of this magnitude on Israeli territory. Overview of this group at the origins of one of the most serious escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What is Hamas?
The Hamas party, or “Islamic Resistance Movement,” was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip) as the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Since his victory in the 2007 parliamentary elections, he has governed more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, a closed enclave of about 365 square kilometers. His takeover of the enclave was rejected by the international community and his Palestinian rivals, leading to a split with the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah in the West Bank.
Hamas is best known for its armed struggle against the Jewish state, which it has always refused to recognize. In its 1988 charter, Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state throughout the former British Mandate of Palestine. However, since 2017 it has accepted a Palestinian state limited to the 1967 borders. Consisting of a political branch and an armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, it regularly carries out attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. The American government estimates that the movement, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan, has between 20,000 and 25,000 members.
What was the motivation for this attack?
In an interview with the Qatari news channel Al-Jezira, Hamas spokesman Khaled Qadomi justified this offensive with the enormous difficulties that the Palestinians have faced for decades and for which, in his opinion, Israel is responsible. “We want the international community to put an end to the atrocities in Gaza against the Palestinian people and against our holy sites [la mosquée] from Al-Aqsa,” he said. The UN Security Council warned in September of “further settlement expansion” and a “deterioration of the economic and humanitarian situation” in the occupied Palestinian territories. The population of the Gaza Strip, one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in the world, has been living under Israeli blockade since 2007.
By taking a hundred Israelis – men, women and children – hostage, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – another organization engaged in the armed struggle against Israel – undoubtedly hope to secure the release of around 4,500 Palestinian prisoners on “terrorist” charges in return “Activities imprisoned in Israeli prisons.” An opportunity for Hamas to “restore its image” among its external allies and the Palestinians, while the movement, which has been in power in Gaza for 16 years, “has failed to establish itself as a desirable model or seems preferable.” that of Fatah [et de l’Autorité palestinienne dirigée par Mahmoud Abbas à Ramallah, en Cisjordanie, ndlr]», Analyzes the London-based Saudi newspaper Al-Majalla.
Who are his allies?
Hamas is part of the so-called “resistance front” that includes Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah, all of which oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East. Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi was one of the first leaders to welcome the attack on Israel, affirming that his country “supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation” and that the “Zionist regime and its supporters” […] must be held accountable in this matter.”
An investigation published in the US daily Wall Street Journal on Sunday claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials had been working with Hamas since August to plan the October 7 air, land and sea attacks.
What are his military capabilities?
Hamas typically leads the armed struggle by firing rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israeli territory. According to Iranian security officials, Tehran has supplied some of these weapons, but Hamas is capable of producing its own rockets after training with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In the past, Hamas has also carried out incursions into Israeli territory, most notably symbolized in 2006 by the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was eventually released in 2011 following a prisoner exchange. According to the New York Times, in 2021, Israeli intelligence estimated that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were storing nearly 30,000 rockets, rockets and other mortar shells in the Gaza enclave.
If Hamas indeed fired nearly 5,000 rockets in a single day, as it claims, that would be equivalent to almost all the rockets fired in the 2014 war, which lasted a month and a half. A real “improvement of Hamas’ capabilities,” says David Khalfa, Middle East specialist at the Jean Jaurès Foundation.