Hamas

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), frequently abbreviated to Hamas (Arabic: حَمَاس, Ḥamās) is a Palestinian Islamist militant political organization which has governed the since 2007. Hamas sees itself as a resistance front against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, although its larger goal is the elimination of Israel altogether. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States,Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. US Department of State. the United Kingdom,Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations. UK Home Office. the European Union,EU court upholds Hamas terror listing. The Guardian. 26 Jul 2017. Japan,Press Conference by Foreign Minister KAMIKAWA Yoko December 8, 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Israel, and other countries. Hamas is known for suicide bombings against civilian targets,Chen Tianshe. Exploration of the Hamas Suicide Attacks. Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (in Asia) Vol. 6, No. 2, 2012. Saarnivaara, Minn (2008). "Suicide Campaigns as a Strategic Choice: The Case of Hamas". Policing. 2 (4): 423–33. doi:10.1093/police/pan061. launching unguided explosive rockets into Israel,Human Rights Watch Report, 2007. and for committing terrorist attacks against rival Palestinian political groups.Palestinian Rivals Accused Of Human Rights Abuses. NPR. July 31, 2008. Violent exchanges between Israel and Hamas have escalated into multiple wars, such as the , the , the , the , and a major war which began with Hamas' brutal terrorist attacks on October 7th, 2023, and lasted over a year.
 founded Hamas in 1987 during the , a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. At its inception, it was closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. It gradually gained influence to the point where it won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 due to widespread discontent with the corruption and ineffectiveness of , the previous ruling party.Scott Wilson, Hamas Sweeps Palestinian Elections, Complicating Peace Efforts in Mideast. Archived from The Washington Post, 27 January 2006. This election result immediately sparked a violent power struggle between the two factions, culminating in Hamas taking control of Gaza in 2007 and beginning to govern it seperately.Battle for Gaza: Hamas Jumped, Provoked and Pushed. Brookings Institute. August 16, 2007. Israel immediately put the Gaza Strip under a near-total blockade, and Egypt followed suit in 2014. The Gaza Strip | The humanitarian impact of 15 years of blockade - June 2022. UNICEF. June 2022. This caused a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza. There has not been a Palestinian election since 2008.
After a destructive series of conflicts, Hamas attempted to moderate its image in 2017 by amending its charter to remove antisemitic language and claim that its conflict was with Zionism rather than Judaism.Seurat, Leila (2019). The Foreign Policy of Hamas. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781838607449. p. 17. The same year, Hamas claimed that it would accept peace with Israel based on the 1967 borders.Hamas accepts Palestinian state with 1967 borders. Al Jazeera. 2 May 2017. Under Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli government policy during this time was to bolster Hamas in order to keep Palestinians divided between Hamas and Fatah and therefore undermine the credibility of a two-state solution.For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces. Times of Israel. 8 October 2023.
Unfortunately, Hamas signaling peace did not translate into concrete action. On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a massive, deadly terrorist attack against Israel. During their incursion into Israeli territory, Hamas militants summarily executed civilians, burned villages, mutilated and paraded corpses, and committed acts of sexual violence.October 7 Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes by Hamas-led Groups. Human Rights Watch. July 17, 2024. The attack resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, and Hamas took over 240 hostages.Israel revises down its death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to about 1,200. NPR. November 11, 2023. Hamas' actions provoked international outrage, and Israel retaliated by bombing and invading the Gaza Strip. During the war, Israel's actions against civilian targets escalated to an extent that they have been credibly labeled genocide.Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza. UN News. 26 March 2024. Despite Israel's best efforts, Hamas remained active through 2024 despite its diminished capabilitiesAfter a year of war, Hamas is militarily weakened — but far from ‘eliminated’. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. 6 October 2024. and emerged from the war in January 2025 still in firm control over the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once the Gaza Strip.
==History==
===Origins===
Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egyptian occupation in the 1967 Six-Day War.1967 war: Six days that changed the Middle East. BBC News. 5 June 2017. Israeli occupation was heavy-handed, seeing thousands of homes bulldozed and Arab families exiled to the Sinai Peninsula.Ehud Eiran, Post-Colonial Settlement Strategy, Edinburgh University Press 2019 ISBN 978-1-474-43759-2 p.83 Long-term Israeli strategy was to empty the Gaza Strip to the extent possible to make way for settlement, and one of the Israeli cabinet's proposed strategies was to limit access to water in order to motivate Arabs to leave.Israeli Prime Minister After Six-Day War: 'We'll Deprive Gaza of Water, and the Arabs Will Leave'. Haaretz. Nov 17, 2017. In short, Israeli misrule caused conditions in the Gaza Strip to deteriorate, and fast.
Israel also turned a blind eye to the rise of Islamism in favor of focusing on what it saw as a greater threat, the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by the Fatah faction and its leader, Yasser Arafat.What the World Can Learn From the History of Hamas. TIME Magazine. October 17, 2023. One of the major Islamist organizations that was active in the region was the Muslim Brotherhood, and it won support in Gaza by supplying food, education, and other social services to the impoverished locals. A Muslim Brotherhood member, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, then decided to found his own organization. Israel granted Yassin a license in 1979 to found a charity group called the al-Mujama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Center. It was far more than a simple charity organization. The Islamic Center also conducted community organization and encouraged political activism, and Israeli officials actually viewed this development as a positive one, as it caused political division among Palestinians.Andrew Higgins, How Israel helped to spawn Hamas. Archived from The Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2009.
In 1987, popular discontent across Palestine resulted in the First Intifada, a series of protests and riots across the region. The Islamist movement which had been growing in Gaza was unhappy with the lack of results shown by the PLO's leadership, as well as the PLO's interest in engaging in diplomacy with Israel. Yassin's charity organization reinvented itself as Hamas, a militant force that intended to fight against Israeli occupation while repudiating secularism.Jean-Pierre Filiu. "The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?" Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2012). p. 54-70 (17 pages). 
===Terrorism and the sabotaged peace===
In 1993, the First Intifada ended in diplomacy, as US President Bill Clinton brought Fatah's Yasser Arafat and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin together to sign the Oslo Accords, which was intended to pave the way for the creation of a democratic Palestinian state.Oslo Accords: 30 years of lost Palestinian hopes. BBC News. 12 September 2023. The hope provided by the Oslo Accords did not last. Israeli settlements across Palestine continued. In 1994, Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein committed a mass shooting at a holy site in Hebron that resulted in 29 Palestinian deaths.10% of Israeli Jews think terrorist Baruch Goldstein is a 'national hero' - poll. Jerusalem Post. MARCH 6, 2023. In 1995, another Jewish fanatic shot and killed Yitzhak Rabin.The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin: ‘He never knew it was one of his people who shot him in the back’. The Guardian. 31 Oct 2020. This removed a major figure within the Israeli government who had been pushing for peace and coexistence. 
As the peace process deteriorated, Hamas grew in influence. It endorsed suicide bombings and car bombings against civilians as legitimate methods to punish the Israelis. In April 1994, a Hamas car bomb killed 8 people and wounded 40 near a bus stop in the Israeli town of Afula, stated to be a retaliation for Baruch Goldstein's massacre.8 KILLED, 40 INJURED IN CAR BOMB BLAST AT ISRAELI BUS STOP. Washington Post. 6 April 1994. In October 1994, a much deadlier Hamas suicide bombing in the Israeli capital, Tel Aviv, took 23 lives.Dizengoff Street attack evokes harsh memories of Tel Aviv terror trauma. Jerusalem Post. JANUARY 1, 2016. The Israeli public reaction was about what you'd expect. Demanding retaliation and a hard line against Palestinian terrorism, Israeli voters in 1996 turfed out the pro-peace Labor government and replaced them with the hawkish, right-wing Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. 
Netanyahu denounced the Oslo Accords, saying the peace process was incompatible with Israel's need for security and its right to claim the entire region in the name of the Jewish people.It's now clear: the Oslo peace accords were wrecked by Netanyahu's bad faith. The Guardian. 12 Sep 2013. His main tactic in destroying the Oslo Accords was in escalating the rate of settlement constructions and land acquisitions in Palestine, splitting Palestinian regions into smaller pieces that couldn't feasibly constitute an independent state. When Palestinians objected to this strategy, Netanyahu said it was evidence that Palestine was choosing militancy over peace.
Meanwhile Hamas terrorist attacks continued. In July 1997, for instance, two Hamas suicide bombers in Jerusalem killed 15 people.Suicide Blasts at Busy Market Kill 15 in Jerusalem. Los Angeles Times. July 31, 1997. During and after the Second Intifada of 2000, Hamas' terrorist activities intensified and now featured rocket attacks and mass shootings. The deadliest and most infamous bombing was the 2002 , an attack on a hotel in Netanya that killed 30 Israeli civilians.Robert J. Brym, Bader Araj. Suicide Bombing as Strategy and Interaction: The Case of the Second Intifada. Social Forces, Vol. 84, No. 4 (Jun., 2006), pp. 1969-1986 (18 pages).
===Takeover of the Gaza Strip===
In 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas' founder Ahmed Yassin in a helicopter attack and then killed his immediate successor quickly thereafter.Israel has a long history of targeted killings. Here’s a look at some of them. Associated Press. July 31, 2024. Khaled Meshal, another Muslim Brotherhood member who was exiled to Syria, took control of the group.Profile of Khaled Meshal (aka Khalid Meshaal, Khaleed Mash’al). Council on Foreign Relations. July 13, 2006. He changed Hamas' long-term strategy by aligning it with Israel's longtime foe Iran, winning a powerful new sponsor despite Hamas being a fundamentalist Sunni organization. 
Meanwhile, Hamas attacks against Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip were escalating, and the Israeli occupation was ineffective in preventing terrorist attacks and rocket strikes.Former Israeli prime minister reflects on the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. NPR. November 21, 2023. Then-current prime minister Ariel Sharon made the decision in 2005 to withdraw the IDF from the Gaza Strip and forcibly dismantle the Israeli settlements that had been built there. Netanyahu resigned from the cabinet in disgust. The withdrawal was also in part a product of negotiations with the recently-elected Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who renounced armed resistance and said he wanted a peaceful and diplomatic two-state solution. 
A pivotal moment in Gaza's history came in 2006, Hamas crushed Fatah in the Palestinian legislative elections by winning 76 seats versus Fatah's 43 in the 132 seat chamber.Hamas celebrates election victory. The Guardian. Jan 2006. It is important to note that Hamas did so with a bare plurality of the vote (44%), and its victory had been fueled by popular dissatisfaction with Fatah's corruption and ineffectiveness rather than support for terrorism.The election that led to Hamas taking over Gaza. The Washington Post. October 24, 2023. The election result caused consternation in the administration of George W. Bush, which, at the height of the War on Terror, had just watched a terrorist organization win an election.How George W. Bush Helped Hamas Come to Power. Slate. Oct 24, 2023. Many Western countries halted foreign aid to Palestine, and Israel immediately placed the Gaza Strip under a near-total blockade.
Fatah didn't react well either, and fighting broke out between the two main Palestinian factions as Fatah tried to reassert control over Gaza. Both Hamas and Fatah engaged in atrocities against each other throughout 2006 and early 2007, summarily executing captives, slaughtering civilians, bombing buildings, and shooting up hospitals.Gaza: Armed Palestinian Groups Commit Grave Crimes. Human Rights Watch. June 2007. Hamas frequently executed captives by throwing them off skyscrapers. Hamas won the conflict, forcing Fatah officials to flee the Gaza Strip and assuming total control.Hamas takes control of Gaza. The Guardian. 15 Jun 2007.
===Uh-oh, it's time for war===
 
After taking control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas used it as a base to construct and launch more rockets into Israel. The attacks wounded hundreds and caused chaos and population displacement in the affected areas despite Israel's hurried construction of an early-warning system. Rockets from Gaza: Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups’ Rocket Attacks. Human Rights Watch. August 6, 2009. A ceasefire brokered by Egypt in June 2008 temporarily halted the attacks, but it broke down in November when Israel launched a raid into Gaza to kill six Hamas fighters.Ten years after the first war on Gaza, Israel still plans endless brute force. The Guardian. 7 Jan 2019. By 27 December, the situation had deteriorated into war with the beginning of Israel's "Operation Cast Lead".
Well, maybe war is overselling things a bit. Hamas had no capability and even less interest in shielding the civilians of the Gaza Strip from Israeli weaponry, and Israel killed over 1,400 Gazan civilians despite using precision-guided weaponry.Israel/Gaza: Operation ‘Cast Lead’ - 22 Days of Death and Destruction. Amnesty International. 02 July 2009. Thousands more had their homes and businesses destroyed. Operation Cast Lead concluded after 22 days, having obviously been a punitive expedition more than anything else.
In November 2012, after more rocket attacks from Hamas, Israel began "Operation Pillar of Defense", another series of airstrikes that killed dozens more Gazan civilians.Israel: Gaza Airstrikes Violated Laws of War. Human Rights Watch. 12 February 2013. During the operation, Hamas also fired more than 1,500 rockets indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas killing multiple Israeli civilians.A year on from deadly Israel/Gaza conflict, the nightmare continues. Amnesty International. November 14, 2013. In July and August 2014, Israel's "Operation Protective Edge" saw more indiscriminate bombing by both sides, but the IDF also got bogged down into an extremely brutal ground battle against Hamas forces in Gaza City.Urban battle from past Gaza war offers glimpse of what an Israeli ground offensive might look like. Associated Press. October 16, 2023. The 2014 war is also remarkable because clear evidence that Hamas had used residential areas as cover while firing rockets at Israel forced a rare admission of "mistakes" from the terrorist group.
None of Israel's military operations were successful in destroying Hamas. Each time, Hamas reemerged with more fighters and more rockets, and its popularity had been bolstered as Gazan civilians grew angrier and angrier at Israel's destructive actions in Gaza.What was Hamas thinking? For over three decades, it has had the same brutal idea of victory. Associated Press. October 11, 2023.
===Talk of moderation===
In 2017, Hamas published a new charter document which, in sharp contrast to the group's previous rhetoric, indicated support for at least a temporary two-state solution and dropped most of the antisemitism. While this sudden moderation was widely seen as a mere attempt to undermine the credibility of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas right before his planned visit with US president Donald Trump, the prospect of a moderating Hamas had been brought up before due to occasional comments and actions by Hamas in the past. 
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum went on international television shortly after the new charter's publication and reiterated Hamas' new stance: "To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilized movement." The same message came from Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal during a press conference from Qatar, in which he said that, "Hamas believes our struggle is against the Zionist occupation, the Zionist enterprise. It's not a struggle against Jews or Judaism."
While cautious hopes were raised elsewhere, the Israeli government publicly rejected the idea of a changing Hamas, noting that the 2017 charter still called for "armed resistance." As a publicity stunt, Prime Minister Netanyahu ripped up the Hamas charter on camera and threw it in a trash bin. However, Netanyahu's attitude towards Hamas was somewhat different behind closed doors...
===Israeli support for Hamas===
In 2018, Israel scored one of the biggest intelligence breakthroughs in its history by raiding the computer of a senior Hamas official; they discovered almost all of Hamas' assets (roughly $500 million) along with the foreign businesses that Hamas was using to finance its operations. Had Israel wanted to, it could have financially crippled Hamas. Instead, Israel did nothing. For years.
You see, Israeli strategy towards Hamas had changed quite radically in the years before this. The Netanyahu government found an unlikely source of agreement with Hamas: neither side wanted to see the emergence of an independent Palestinian state or an and to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hamas was furthermore a convenient boogeyman for the Israeli government to point to. After all, Israeli politicians never failed to note, how could the international community expect the creation of a Palestinian state when a large chunk of it was controlled by a terrorist group? 
Imports from Egypt to Gaza increased significantly from 2020 to 2021, and Israel allowed Hamas to tax those imports, all despite the presence of an Israeli blockade. The Netanyahu government also knew about and tolerated billions of dollars sent to Gaza from Qatar, a gamble by Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would keep Hamas content and focused on governing the territory. This practice was disparaged by Netanyahu's opponents as "buying quiet." 
The most egregious part of the story was still to come. Over a year before the October 7th attacks, Israeli intelligence discovered a 40-page document describing step-by-step Hamas' attack plans and further revealing that Hamas had scarily accurate information about Israeli defenses near Gaza. Nothing happened. The Israeli government decided that the Hamas attack plan was unrealistic and not worth further investigation. Qatari payments to Hamas continued unabated after the discovery of this document.
===October 7th attacks===
The terrorist attacks of October 7th, 2023 began with a volley of thousands of rockets launched from Gaza. Backed by the rocket barrage, Hamas militants broke out of the Gaza Strip and invaded nearby Israeli communities to mass murder and abduct Israeli civilians. The Hamas incursions primarily took place through breaches in Israel's border defenses, but other Hamas fighters used motorboats and parachutes to cross into Israel. A later probe by the Israel Defense Forces determined that Hamas had launched an estimated 4,300 rockets and sent about 6,000 Gazans into Israel to slaughter civilians. 
In one instance, Hamas attacked a nearby Israeli music festival and opened fire on a crowd of 1,300 people, killing at least 260. Hamas fighters kidnapped Shani Louk, a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman, from the festival before torturing her, parading her around Gaza, and then executing her.
A 2024 investigation by the Human Rights Watch confirmed that Hamas had committed a litany of war crimes during the attack, including deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians; willful killing of persons in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes relating to sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling of bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting. United Nations special representative Pramila Patton announced in a 2024 report that she had found "clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualised torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been committed against hostages," and said that she had been privy to scenes of "unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality."
The final death toll from the October 7th attack was assessed at about 1,200, making this the third-deadliest terrorist attack in modern history. Hamas also abducted over 240 Israelis, including children, to use as hostages.
In the aftermath, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh disgustingly celebrated the terrorist group's bloody attack as "a rendezvous with a great victory and a dazzling triumph." The leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said that the attack was in retaliation for Israel's prolonged blockade of the Gaza Strip, ongoing settlement construction, and for violence between Israel and Hamas that took place throughout 2023.
===The war that Hamas had always wanted===
Hamas chose to launch its attack at a time when it was feeling the most desperate. For most of Joe Biden's presidency, one of his overriding goals was to establish diplomatic normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In 2023, this deal appeared closer to materializing thanks to Biden's willingness to agree to security guarantees for Saudi Arabia. Iran, its proxy Hezbollah, and Hamas were all horrified by the prospect of further reduced diplomatic backing for the Palestinian cause and the potential for one of the Middle East's regional powers to outright align itself with Israel. Hamas' assault on Israel served its purpose in detonating the Israel-Saudi negotiations, as Saudi Arabia was appalled at the Israeli response.
On October 9th, Israel implemented an absolute siege of the Gaza Strip by cutting the territory off from water, food, and fuel. Israel's indiscriminate bombings across the entire Gaza Strip leveled countless buildings and amounted to war crimes. By December, the United Nations said that 70% of school buildings in Gaza had been attacked despite schools being used to shelter civilians. After three weeks of bombings, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of the northern Gaza Strip while forcing Gazan civilians out of their homes and packing them into the increasingly crowded south. Israel then bombed the southern Gaza Strip, killing numerous Gazan refugees who had evacuated there on Israel's orders.
This carnage was the war that Hamas had always wanted, and for which it had prepared for years. At the outset of hostilities, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh declared that, "This is the ultimate jihad, the outcome of which can only be victory or martyrdom."
In many ways, Hamas got what it hoped for from the war. The terrorist group regained its credibility as an effective "resistance" movement, and its popularity among Gazans rebounded in December after sinking for years. Hamas had also launched its attack with the intent of drawing in Iran and Hezbollah. Israel indeed engaged in armed conflicts with both. Israel's atrocities also left it increasingly diplomatically isolated on the world stage. 
On the other hand, Hamas' success was paid for with numerous lives. Hamas lost somewhere between 6,000 and 13,000 fighters, a large portion of its estimated pre-war strength. Civilian deaths in Gaza totaled over 46,600 people, and about 60% of all buildings in Gaza, including 90% of homes, had been destroyed by bombing. Israel also assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, then killed his replacement Yahya Sinwar, and then killed Hamas' military leader Mohammed Deif.
The war finally ended with a ceasefire in January 2025, stipulating that Hamas must release the remaining hostages while Israel releases some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
==Crimes against humanity==
===Torture and extra-judicial killings===
Hamas rules the Gaza Strip with an iron fist. In order to maintain its rule, the terrorist group has resorted to inflicting terror and brutality upon its own people. During the aftermath of the 2014 war with Israel, Hamas accused numerous perceived political opponents of collaboration with Israel, using that as justification to have dozens of people rounded up for torture and summary execution. In the words of Amnesty International, the situation amounted to, "Hamas taking advantage of the situation and either settling scores or exacting revenge on its opponents." 
This record of savagery goes back even further. During Hamas' conflict with Fatah in 2009, the terrorist group used schools as makeshift detention centers to torture suspected Fatah members, using methods like blinding and shooting the victims' legs. In 2012, Hamas publicly executed six suspected Israel-collaborators before tying the sixth corpse to a motorcycle and dragging it through the streets of Gaza City.
A 2022 report by the Human Rights Watch unveiled Hamas' continuing inhumane treatment of detainees, including prolonged death threats, solitary confinement, arbitrary beatings and whippings, use of stress positions, and binding with metal cables.
===Deliberate attacks on civilians===
Hamas has committed numerous suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, and Human Rights Watch demanded in 2002 that Hamas leaders "be held accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity."Structures and Strategies of the Perpetrator Organizations. "Erased In A Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks Against Israeli Civilians," Human Rights Watch, October 2002. Hamas has also fired countless tens of thousands of unguided explosive rockets into Israel in a deliberate attempt to inflict civilian casualties, with some landing inside Gaza and killing Palestinian civilians. During a period of armed conflict with Israel in 2021, Hamas fired about 4,360 unguided rockets and mortars into Israel, a series of attacks that Human Rights Watch described as war crimes.
Rockets fired from Gaza have also been launched from residential areas. Amnesty International condemned Hamas for launching rockets from schools, mosques, a Greek Orthodox church, multiple refugee shelters, and at least one hospital during the 2014 war with Israel. 
Hamas war crimes reached their peak during the October 7th attacks. Amnesty International verified numerous videos showing Hamas militants gunning down civilians, dragging away hostages, and parading the body of a murdered woman through Gaza. As described by the Human Rights Watch, "The killing of civilians and taking of hostages were all central aims of the planned attack."
===Sexual violence===
 
While several debunked accounts of sexual violence from October 7th were used to deny all evidence of further claims, evidence that Hamas systematically carried out acts of rape and gang-rape during the massive terrorist attack is abundant. A report from United Nations special envoy Pramila Patten found "clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" had taken place during October 7th and against hostages taken by Hamas.
==Governance of the Gaza Strip==
Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since its takeover in 2007, and its rule has unsurprisingly been relentlessly authoritarian. There have been no elections for any office in the Gaza Strip since 2007, women are excluded from public life, and Hamas routinely arrests and tortures journalists in Gaza. Sunni Islam is the state religion of the Gaza Strip; blasphemy is a criminal offense and Hamas exercises political control over mosques.
Freedom of assembly is also not respected. When protesters took to the streets against the rising cost of living and deteriorating conditions in March 2019, Hamas launched a crackdown and subjected hundreds of protesters to beatings and torture. In January 2023, Hamas disrupted student groups for violating rules on gender segregation before forcing everyone to sign "morality pledges". 
On a related note, women's rights are not respected in the Gaza Strip. Honor killings are tolerated, and Hamas interprets an article in the Palestinian legal code as an effective license to kill women with impunity. Justifications for honor killings include women meeting strangers in person or even simply having contact with them online; Gaza authorities frequently cover up honor killings by listing causes of death as accidents or "mysterious circumstances". For LGBT Gazans, "passing" is a matter of survival, as homosexuality is illegal and punishable by torture or death. 
The Hamas regime has also shown extreme callousness toward the lives of the Gazan population. While Hamas fires rockets from near civilian areas, it has also not built bomb shelters or used its tunnel network to shield civilians. Hamas' shoddily-built unguided rockets can also misfire and hit civilians in Gaza; in November 2023, a misfired Hamas rocket hit the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza and killed as many as 471 people. Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, admitted in an interview with The Economist that Hamas didn't care about how many Gazans die in its wars with Israel because, "Dignity is more valuable than life. The homeland is more important, more than life."
== Foreign relations ==
===Terrorist designation===
Numerous countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in response to its heinous crimes against Israel. The United States did so on three separate occasions, twice by the Clinton administration, and then again by George W. Bush upon his administration's creation of the special global terrorism list. Canada followed suit shortly thereafter in 2002.Public Safety Canada: Listed Terrorist Entities - Hamas (Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiya) (Islamic Resistance Movement). When the European Union announced its designation in 2003, Hamas challenged the decision in court, but the terrorist designation was upheld in 2017. After Hamas increased its rocket attacks on Israel in 2021, the also designated Hamas a terrorist organization.Press Release: Qualification of Hamas as a Terrorist Organization by the OAS General Secretariat. Organization of American States. May 17, 2021. Reference: E-051/21. More recently, Argentina designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 2024 due to the October 7th attacks and as a "fuck you" to Iran, which Argentina blames for facilitating the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentinian history in 1994. 
Although Jordan does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, it did expel Hamas from the country in 1999 and still refuses to consider allowing them back in.
===Iran and Hezbollah===
Iran has been a longtime sponsor of Hamas, and the US State Department estimated in 2021 that the funding, weapons, and training provided by Iran amounted to about $100 million per year. Despite their common enmity with Israel, Hamas and Iran haven't always seen eye-to-eye. During the Syrian Civil War, they had a falling-out because Hamas refused to support Bashar al-Assad alongside Iran and Hezbollah.
While Hamas is a core part of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance," Iran did not participate in Hamas's "ultimate jihad." Its participation in the conflict was limited to a barrage of missiles that caused little damage to Israel, and that was primarily in retaliation for Israel infiltrating Iran's capital city to assassinate the leader of Hamas. In reality, Iran wanted nothing to do with Hamas' war against Israel, or indeed any war with Israel. With a divided government and society, Arab adversaries hoping for Iran to be distracted, and a general sense of caution towards the United States, Iran's leadership understood that outright war with Israel made no sense.
Another major ally for Hamas was Hezbollah a fellow member of Iran's "axis of resistance" based out of Lebanon. However, Hamas' hopes of drawing Hezbollah into its war with Israel fell rather short, due to Hezbollah's initially limited involvement and then its utter defeat by Israel in late 2024. 
===Qatar (and the luxurious lives of Hamas leaders)===
The government of Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas in payments which were, we must remind everyone, tolerated by the Netanyahu government. By 2024, Qatar was Hamas' largest financial supporter. 
It also did not escape notice that Hamas's three top leaders (Abu Marzouk, Khaled Mashaal, and Ismail Haniyeh) all lived in luxury hotels in Qatar's capital while the people of Gaza suffered unlivable poverty. The US Treasury confirmed that the three men had an estimated net worth of about $11 billion. 
In November 2024, Qatar agreed to eject Hamas from the country following a request from the Biden administration. Hamas' leaders—the ones still alive, that is—left Qatar's capital shortly after.
==See also==
*Muslim Brotherhood
*Friends of Hamas
*Hezbollah
*Fun:List of things that are affiliated with Hamas (According to Israel)
==Notes==
==References==
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