What is Hamas and why did it launch an attack against Israel?

The Palestinian group Hamas is behind the Gaza attack, which surprised Tel Aviv and triggered one of the most serious escalations in the conflict between Israel and Palestine in recent years.

It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin during the first uprising in 1987 (or intifada) Palestinian Hamas is a religious political movement that emerged after the Muslim Brotherhood, with which it shares Sunni Islamist ideology. Its name is an abbreviation for Harakat al-muqawama al-islamiyya, which means Islamic resistance movement.

Hamas is part of a regional alliance that includes Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamist group in Lebanon, that broadly opposes U.S. policies in the Middle East and Israel. On the other hand, the organization is evaluated by Israel, the USA, the European Union, Canada, Egypt and Japan.

Hamas militants refuse to recognize the State of Israel (according to the organization’s charter, this state must be destroyed) and, especially through its armed wing, have been the protagonists of almost all actions that have fueled the conflict with Tel Aviv over the past two decades. It was called Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades.

Hamas, which lost its leadership in 2004 after Yasin was killed in an Israeli attack, opposes the more moderate policy of Fatah, the other major Palestinian political movement led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is also the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Liberation Organization.

When the PLO signed the Oslo peace agreements with Israel in the 1990s, Hamas rejected these agreements and continued its reconciliation efforts in the Gaza Strip thanks to “social investments” in hospitals and schools. By consensus, Hamas gradually imposed the principles of Islamic law and established a “moral police” on the Iranian model.

Following the last elections held in Palestine in 2006, Hamas took de facto control of Gaza, while Fatah’s stronghold is in the West Bank. The Israeli army’s bloodiest attacks since 2022 took place precisely in Gaza and resulted in the deaths of dozens of people in the name of the fight against Hamas terrorism. However, there was no shortage of victims among the Palestinians in the West Bank, where the occupation of Israeli settlers has been intensified for months with the support of the Benjamin Netanyahu government. Settlers are also at the center of the tension around the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the third holiest site of Islam, which Israeli police raided during Ramadan last April.

Hamas spokesman Khaled Kadomi told Al Jazeera that the group’s military operation was a response to all the atrocities Palestinians have faced for decades. “We want the international community to stop the persecution of the Palestinian people in Gaza and our holy places such as Al-Aqsa Mosque. All of this is the reason why we started this struggle.”

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Source: Today IT

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