This essay profiles the Hamas Terrorist Group. It highlights the facts and outlines the origins of Hamas, its aims and ideology, and explains its leadership structure and the group’s strategies and attack record. Finally, it assess and analyses the impact of Hamas and offers a comment on the future of the group.
In Arabic, the word “hamas” means zeal; it is also an Arabic acronym for “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,” or Islamic Resistance Movement. The group is the largest and most influential Palestinian militant movement.
In January 2006, the group won the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) general legislative elections in the Gaza Strip. Since attaining power, Hamas has continued its refusal to recognize the state of Israel.
The Origins of Hamas
Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and political organization founded in Egypt with branches throughout the Arab world. Beginning in the late 1960s, Hamas’s founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, preached and performed charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both of which were occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War.
Yassin founded Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood’s local political arm in December 1987. Hamas published its Official Charter in 1988, clearly moving away from the Muslim Brotherhood’s ethos of nonviolence.
It is estimated that the Hamas annual budget is about US$70 million.
Hamas is state sponsored by Iran, Palestinian expatriates, and “private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.
Hamas is widely considered to have links with Al Qaeda. This was further emphasized when earlier in 2011, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, condemned the killing of Osama Bin Laden by American forces.
The Aims and Ideology of Hamas
The aims of Hamas are identified in its founding charter which commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the Palestinian Authority with an Islamist state on the West Bank and in Gaza, and to raising “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”
The ideology of Hamas combines Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, Palestinian and Religious nationalism
Leadership and Structure
The Leadership of Hamas
The Founders of Hamas are Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Mahmoud Zahar.
The Chief of the Political Bureau is Khalid Meshal. The Deputy Chief of the Political Bureau is Mousa Abu Marzouq, the Prime Minister is Ismail Haniyah and the Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar.
Hamas’ leadership structure is detailed as follows.
Khaled Meshal: Meshal was born in the West Bank in 1956 and studied physics at Kuwait University, where he led the Islamic Palestinian student movement. Meshal is considered the leader of Hamas and resides in Damascus, Syria, where he has lived in exile since the early 1990s.
Musa Abu-Marzuq: Born in Gaza in 1951; he received a doctorate in industrial engineering in the United States. He serves as Hamas’ deputy political leader, and is based in Syria. He lived in the United States and Jordan for many years and was expelled from both countries. In 2004, a US court indicted him in absentia for coordinating and financing Hamas activities.
Mahmoud al-Zahar: Born in Gaza, Zahar, studied medicine in Cairo and is a founding member of Hamas. Referred to as a “hardliner,” Zahar leads the Hamas faction in parliament.
Aziz Dweik: Dweik, an academic by profession, was born in 1948 and has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. Dweik was deported to Lebanon in 1992 and served as spokesperson of the deportees.
Sheik Hassan Yousef: Yousef, in his fifties, has been the head of Hamas in the West Bank since 2001, and is currently in an Israeli prison. Considered by many experts to be pragmatic, Yousef’s participation in parliament, should he be released, may promote moderation within Hamas.
Sheik Muhammed Abu Tayr: Tayr, from Jerusalem, is in his fifties and garnered the second-most votes on Hamas’ national candidates list. Tayr spent 25 years in prison, is a former member of Fatah, and generally keeps a lower profile than other Hamas leaders. Though multiple reports claim Tayr supports sharia (Islamic law) influenced legislation, he does not appear to want to impose Islamic law.
Mohamed Deif: Deif, 40 years old, is from Gaza. Since 2002, he has been the Gaza commander of the military wing of Hamas. According to some, Deif’s mentor was Yahya Ayyash, a renowned Hamas bomb maker and head of the Qassam brigades until his assassination in late 1995. Deif’s exact whereabouts are unknown.
Despite being victorious in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Hamas has not been successful in unifying around a coherent program. This has inflamed tensions within the Palestinian Authority.
Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister and senior Hamas figure in Gaza, has often appeared at odds with Khaled Meshal.
The Structure of Hamas
Hamas is comprised of three interrelated wings.
The Political Wing
Hamas’s highest decision-making body is its Political Bureau. It consists of 15 members and operates in exile in Damascus, Syria. The Bureau is elected by members who select their representatives in local Consultative Councils in specific geographic regions. The Councils then nominate representatives to the General Consultative Council, and the Political Bureau is elected by members of the General Consultative Council.
The Hamas Political Bureau has responsibility for political and propaganda activities and directing and coordinating terrorism campaigns.
The Social Welfare Wing
Hamas devotes much of its estimated $70 million annual budget to the Social Welfare Wing Almost 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities. In particular it funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues.
The Military Wing
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades are an integral part of Hamas. It has its own leaders who it is claimed, do not take their orders from Hamas and do not share their plans in advance.
The Military Wing is deployed in covert activities; acting against suspected collaborators, intelligence gathering on potential targets, procuring weapons and carrying out military attacks.
Strategy and Typical Tactics and Targets
Main elements of the Hamas strategy
Hamas refutes the label of terrorist but accept that a large part of their strategy, militarily, is to create fear.
In 2008 Hamas diverted its main effort from “statistical” rocket terrorism, aimed at indiscriminately hurting Israeli civilians both physically and mentally,
to what can be characterized as specific and complex “guerilla operations” mostly targeting the Israeli Defense Force operating along the fence.
The organization’s strategic objectives have remained unchanged; foremost to force Israel, through military and propaganda pressure, to lift the economic siege on the Gaza Strip. The siege threatens the survival of Hamas in government.
The second objective was to have Jerusalem agree to a lull in the fighting under terms that would enable Hamas to grow stronger militarily and politically and to prepare for a large-scale round of fighting in the future. The reason for the change in combat strategy is the fact that the organization’s leadership recently reached the conclusion that the statistical terror directed at civilians – rockets, mortar shells, and machine gun fire – does not provide the required political and psychological result. It may even damage Hamas when it comes to international and Palestinian public opinion.
Typical Tactics
Hamas uses suicide bombing tactics that are aligned with Islamic extremism for achieving its political aims. These are often against civilians targets.
For suicide bombing assignments, the organization generally recruits deeply religious young men. Hamas bombers often hold paying jobs, even in poverty-stricken Gaza. What they have in common, studies say, is an intense hatred of Israel.
The recruits undergo intense religious indoctrination, attend lectures, and undertake long fasts. The average bombing costs about $150. The first Hamas suicide bombing took place in April 1993.
However, not all Hamas’s attacks have been carried out by suicide bombers. The group has also accepted responsibility for assaults using mortars, short-range rockets, and small arms fire. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas has increasingly used of guerrilla tactics. It has planted IEDs and deployed anti-tank rockets against the Israeli Defense Force.
Hamas has also been accused of using children as human shields as well as children combatants as a tactic.
According to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch, in 2008, Fathi Hamad, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, stated on Al-Aqsa TV, “For the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly (Palestinians) created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: ‘We desire death as you desire life’.”
Targets
Hamas targets Israeli civilians and members of the Israeli armed forces.
It also targets suspected Palestinian collaborators and Fatah political rivals.
Hamas is believed to have killed more than five hundred people in more than 350 separate terrorist attacks since 1993. In addition to rocket attacks, Hamas and other militant groups shoot at Israeli soldiers and agricultural workers near the Gaza border. A particularly difficult problem has been the Hamas use of improvised explosive devices [IEDs] near the security barrier.
Other targets and activities
In the wake of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January 2009, Hamas has been accused of systematically rounding up, torturing and summarily executing Fatah supporters suspected of supplying information to Israel.
Earlier in February 2007, members of the Palestinian Red Crescent, said that Hamas had confiscated their humanitarian supply convoys that were destined for Palestinian civilians.
Human Rights Watch has cited a number of summary executions as particular examples of violations of the rules of warfare, including the case of Muhammad Swairki, a 28 year old cook for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard. Swairiki was thrown to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City.
Main Attacks carried out by Hamas
Between 2001 and 2003, in particular, Hamas and its comrades of Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out dozens of such attacks, ultimately leading Israel to begin construction of the barrier between itself and the Palestinian regions.
On February 24th 2008, thousands of angry Hamas loyalists marched on the funeral of a Muslim preacher who died in PNA custody, turning the ceremony into a show of defiance against President Mahmoud Abbas.
Main attacks attributed to Hamas or where Hamas has claimed responsibility.
1993
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Mehola Junction Bombing | 16 April 1 | MeholaJunction | 1 |
1994
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Tel Aviv Bus 5 Suicide Bombing | 19 October | Tel Aviv | 22 |
1995
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Beit Lid Massacre | January 22 | Beit Lid Junction | 21 |
1996
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| First Jerusalem Bus 18 Suicide Bombing | 25 February | Jerusalem Central Bus Station | 26 |
| Second Jerusalem Bus 18 suicide bombing | 3 March | Jaffa street, Jerusalem | 19 |
| Dizengoff Center Suicide Bombing | 4 March | Tel Aviv | 13 |
1997
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Mahane Yehuda Market attack | 30 July | Jerusalem Main Market | 16 |
1998
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Jerusalem bombing | 6 November | Jerusalem | 2 |
2000
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Mahane Yehuda Market Bombing | 2 November | Jerusalem | 2 |
2001
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Dolphinarium Discotheque Suicide Bombing | 1 June | Tel Aviv | 21 |
| Sbarro Restaurant Suicide Bombing | 9 August | Downtown Jerusalem | 15 |
| Ben Yehuda Street Bombing | 1 December | Downtown Jerusalem | 11 |
| Haifa Bus 16 Suicide Bombing | 2 December | Haifa | 15 |
2002
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Yeshivat Beit Yisrael Massacre | 2 March | Yeshiva in Jerusalem | 11 |
| Café Moment Bombing | 9 March | Rehavia, Jerusalem | 11 |
| Passover Massacre | 27 March | Netanya | 30 |
| Matza Restaurant Suicide Bombing | 31 March | Haifa | 15 |
| Rishon LeZion attack | 7 May | Rishon LeZion | 15 |
| Egged Bus 830 Massacre | 5 June | Megiddo Junction | 17 |
| Patt Junction Bus Bombing | 18 June | Jerusalem | 19 |
| Egged Bus 841 Massacre | 21 October | Carcur Junction | 14 |
| Jerusalem Bus 20 Suicide Bombing | 21 November | Kiryat Menahem, Jerusalem | 11 |
2003
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Tel-Aviv Central Bus Station Massacre | 5 January | Southern Tel Aviv | 22 |
| Haifa Bus 37 Suicide Bombing | 5 March | Carmeliya neighborhood, Haifa | 17 |
| Jerusalem Bus 14A Attack | 11 June | Downtown Jerusalem | 17 |
| Jerusalem Bus 2 Suicide Bombing | 19 August | Shmuel Hanavi, Jerusalem | 23 |
| Maxim Restaurant Suicide Bombing | 4 October | Haifa | 21 |
2004
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll | |
| Jerusalem Bus 19 Massacre | 29 January | Rehavia, Jerusalem | 11 | |
| Ashdod Port Massacre | 14 March | Port of Ashdod | 10 | |
| Beersheba Attack | 31 August | Downtown Beersheba on buses 7 and 12 | 16 | |
| Sinai Bombings | 7 October | Sinai peninsula, Egypt | 34 |
2005
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Hadera Market Bombing | 26 October | Hadera | 7 |
2006
| Name | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Rosh Ha’ir Restaurant Bombing | 17 April | Near Tel Aviv Old Central Bus Station | 11 |
2007
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Eilat Bakery Bombing | 29 January | Eilat | 3 |
2008
| Known As | Date | Location | Death Toll |
| Dimona Bombing | 4 February | Dimona | 1 |
On August 14, 2009 Hamas fighters stormed the Mosque of radical cleric Abdel-Latif Moussa who was protected by at least 100 fighters from Jund Ansar Allah (“Army of the Helpers of God”), an Islamist group with links to Al-Qaeda.
As a result of this attack, Moussa and 13 other people were killed with 120 injured.
Analysis
The Impact of Hamas
The biggest obstacle to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is the emergence of Hamas as the de facto government of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has shown repeatedly that it can bring talks to an end by castigating moderate Palestinians and turning to violence. Today Hamas is far stronger than when it first took power. Peace talks can begin with Hamas on the sidelines, but they cannot finish if Hamas refuses to cooperate. Hamas has proved that it has the means to threaten Israel and disrupt peace talks.
The Future of Hamas
The future of Hamas appears to be as both an agent of the armed struggle and of a legitimate political body.
Israel and Egypt and the international community have put Gaza under siege to isolate and weaken Hamas. The world lays the blame for the resultant humanitarian catastrophe at Israel’s feet. Hamas has appeared to be the victim of Israeli cruelty and violence.
The siege of Gaza has also increased the importance of the social services that Hamas offers and provides. Despite the siege, Hamas is growing stronger militarily. Its rockets are getting more powerful and are reaching further. Over time, Hamas has tripled the range of the rockets; today they can reach large nearby cities such as Ashqelon and Beersheba and possibly Tel Aviv. Its fighters are becoming more formidable.
Hamas is also beginning to look beyond pariahs such as Iran for backing. Khaled Meshaal met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Damascus in May 2010. Turkish President Abdullah Gul called for including Hamas in peace talks.
Hamas has become stronger both politically and militarily and over decades has established infrastructure of hospitals, mosques and social services.
Although often depicted as fanatical, Hamas has shown itself to be pragmatic in practice, although rarely in rhetoric. Perhaps the most important sign of pragmatism has been Hamas’ general adherence to its cease fire after Operation Cast Lead.
The siege of Gaza has not weakened Hamas’ power but it has forced the organization to become more realistic. Gazans are a hardy and resilient people but will require Hamas to make compromises to give them a better life.
If Hamas manages to govern successfully, it could hope to gain more political power and respect in the future. Hamas seems likely to survive either in its present form as a resistance movement and a government or in the future as a government in its own right in Gaza and does appear to be well establsihed for the long term.
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REFERENCES
The following sources were used to research facts and to prepare an analysis for this paper.
Foreign Affairs September/October 2010; Global Security – Military; Islamic Resistance Movement; International Relations, Hamas in Power; February 10, 2011; Washington Institute; Hamas Tactics; Lessons from Recent Attacks; October 19th, 2005; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs; The Hamas Terror Organisation since 2009 (ITIC Report March 2011); Hamas – Profile of the State Department designated Palestinian Terrorist; 2011; Hamas – from Wikipedia – free Encycopedia; BBC News – Who are Hamas, 4 Jan 2009.