Hamas
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| Hamas حركة المقاومة الاسلامية | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founder | Sheikh Ahmed Yassin |
| Chief of the Political Bureau | Khaled Mashaal[1][2] |
| Deputy Chief of the Political Bureau | Mousa Abu Marzouq[1][2] |
| Prime Minister | Ismail Haniyah[1] |
| Foreign Minister | Mahmoud Zahar[1] |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Preceded by | Palestinian Muslim Brethren |
| Headquarters | Gaza, Palestinian territories |
| Ideology | Islamism,[3] Islamic fundamentalism,[4] Palestinian nationalism, religious nationalism |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
| Politics of Palestine Political parties Elections | |
Hamas (حماس Ḥamās, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement") is the Palestinian Islamist socio-political organization, with an affiliated military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,[5][6][7] and described by most analysts as fundamentalist or Islamist,[8] the group was established in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.[9]Canada,[10] Israel, European Union,[11] and the United States[12][13][14] classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Based largely based upon the principles of Islamic fundamentalism that were gaining momentum throughout the Arab world in the 1980s, Hamas was founded during the First Intifada.[15] The Hamas affiliated Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades are responsible for the majority of violence and killings attributed to Hamas and militants have conducted numerous attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. Tactics have included rocket attacks and from April 1993, until they ceased in January 2005, suicide bombings. Hamas violence has been directed at Israel, Egypt, and rivaling Palestinian movements in the West Bank and Gaza. [16]
In the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections Hamas won a decisive majority in the Palestinian Parliament,[17] defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party. Following the elections, the United States and the EU halted financial assistance to the Hamas-led administration.[18][19] In March 2007 a national unity government, headed by Hamas’s Ismail Haniya, was briefly formed, but this failed to restart international financial assistance.[20] Tensions over control of Palestinian security forces soon erupted into the 2007 Battle of Gaza,[21] after which Hamas retained control of Gaza while its officials were ousted from government positions in the West Bank.[21][22] Israel and Egypt then imposed an economic blockade on Gaza, on the grounds that Fatah forces were no longer providing security there.[23]
In June 2008, Hamas ceased rocket attacks on Israel following an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, but attacks by other organizations continued despite Hamas efforts to prevent them.[24] Two months before the end of the ceasefire the conflict escalated, after a November 4 Israeli incursion into Gaza killed seven Hamas militants, which led to a renewal of Hamas rocket attacks.[24][25] In late December 2008, Israel attacked Gaza,[26][27] withdrawing its forces from the territory in mid-January 2009.
Hamas's 1988 charter calls for replacing the State of Israel with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.[28] However, in July 2009, Khaled Meshal, Hamas's Damascus-based political bureau chief, stated Hamas's willingness to cooperate with "a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict which included a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders," provided that Palestinian refugees be given the right to return to Israel and that East Jerusalem be recognized as the new state's capital.[29][30] Hamas has in the past described its conflict with Israel as political and not religious,[31][31][32][33] but some journalists and advocacy groups believe that the Hamas Charter and statements by Hamas leaders have been influenced by antisemitic conspiracy theories.[34]
