Hamas

Extracted Attributes

• Type

  Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation, militant group

• Acronym

  Hamas

• Founder

  Ahmed Yassin

• Full Name

  Islamic Resistance Movement

• Key Leaders

  Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Mashaal

• Founded Date

  1987-12-10

• Headquarters

  Gaza City, Palestine

• Military Wing

  Qassam Brigades (Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades)

• Leadership Base

  Qatar

• Social Service Wing

  Dawah

• Initial Political Aim

  State in all of Mandatory Palestine

• Governing Authority Since

  2007

• 2017 Charter Political Aim

  Palestinian state within 1967 borders without recognizing Israel

• Terrorist Designation (No)

  Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria, Turkey

• Terrorist Designation (Yes)

  Australia, Canada, European Union, Israel, Japan, New Zealand (military wing only), Paraguay (military wing only), United Kingdom, United States

Timeline

• Mujama al-Islamiya, the Islamic charity from which Hamas emerged, was founded by Ahmed Yassin. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1973-XX-XX

• Hamas was founded by Ahmed Yassin, following the outbreak of the First Intifada. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, Wikidata)

  1987-12-10

• The Hamas Charter was affirmed, stating the organization's goal to liberate Palestine and establish an Islamic state. (Source: DBPedia)

  1988-XX-XX

• The US government first designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. (Source: Web Search)

  1997-XX-XX

• Hamas began using rocket attacks as a tactic against Israel. (Source: DBPedia)

  2001-XX-XX

• Hamas began acquiescing to 1967 borders in agreements signed with Fatah. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2005-XX-XX

• Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the Palestinian legislative election. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia)

  2006-XX-XX

• Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah in the Battle of Gaza, becoming the de facto governing authority. Israel and Egypt subsequently imposed an economic blockade on the Gaza Strip. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia)

  2007-XX-XX

• Hamas engaged in a major conflict with Israel (2008–09 Gaza War). (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, BBC)

  2008-XX-XX

• Hamas engaged in a major conflict with Israel (Operation Pillar of Defense). (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, BBC)

  2012-XX-XX

• Hamas engaged in a major conflict with Israel (Operation Protective Edge). (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, BBC)

  2014-XX-XX

• Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without recognizing Israel, removing antisemitic language from its 1988 charter. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2017-XX-XX

• A United Nations motion to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization was rejected. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, DBPedia)

  2018-XX-XX

• Hamas engaged in a major conflict with Israel (May 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis). (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, BBC)

  2021-XX-XX

• Hamas fighters launched a large-scale assault on southern Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, initiating an ongoing conflict. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia, Web Search)

  2023-10-07

• A United Nations motion to condemn Hamas was rejected. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2023-XX-XX

Hamas

The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (an acronym from the Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007. The Hamas movement was founded by Palestinian Islamic scholar Ahmed Yassin in 1987, after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It emerged from his 1973 Mujama al-Islamiya Islamic charity affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially, Hamas was discreetly supported by Israel, as a counter-balance to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). In the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas secured a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council by campaigning on promises of a corruption-free government and advocating for resistance as a means to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. In the Battle of Gaza, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah, and has since governed the territory separately from the Palestinian National Authority. After Hamas's takeover, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. Egypt also began its blockade of Gaza at this time. This was followed by multiple wars with Israel, including those in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, and an ongoing one since 2023, which began with the October 7 attacks. Hamas has promoted Palestinian nationalism in an Islamic context and initially sought a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine. It began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In 2017, Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without recognizing Israel. Hamas's repeated offers of a truce (for a period of 10–100 years: 221–246 ) based on the 1967 borders are seen by many as consistent with a two-state solution, while others state that Hamas retains the long-term objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine.: 837, 839  While the 1988 Hamas charter was widely described as antisemitic, Hamas's 2017 charter removed the antisemitic language and declared Zionists, not Jews, the targets of their struggle. It has been debated whether the charter has reflected an actual change in policy. In terms of foreign policy, Hamas has historically sought out relations with Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey; some of its relations have been impacted by the Arab Spring. Hamas and Israel have engaged in protracted armed conflict. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, water rights, the permit regime, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return. Hamas has attacked Israeli civilians, including using suicide bombings, as well as launching rockets at Israeli cities. Australia, Canada, Paraguay, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union, have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. In 2018 and 2023, a motion at the United Nations to condemn Hamas was rejected.

Web Search Results

• What Is Hamas? | Council on Foreign Relations

  Hamas is an Islamist militant group that spun off from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s. It took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006. Governments including the United States and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organization over its attacks against Israel, which have included suicide bombings and rocket attacks. [...] Hamas is an Islamist militant movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades. It violently rejects the existence of Israel, which it claims is occupying Palestine. In October 2023, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. In response, Israel declared a war aimed at eradicating the group. The conflict has killed more than forty-thousand people as of October 2024, according to Palestinian officials in Gaza. More on: [...] Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who became an activist in local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood after dedicating his early life to Islamic scholarship in Cairo. Beginning in the late 1960s, Yassin preached and performed charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza, both of which Israel occupied following the 1967 Six-Day War. Image 8: A map of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

• Doctrine of Hamas | Wilson Center

  Hamas is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. It has called on members of the other two Abrahamic faiths—Judaism and Christianity—to accept Islamic rule in the Middle East. “It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region, because the day these followers should take over there will be nothing but carnage, displacement and terror,” it decreed. Hamas also rejected any prospect of peace or coexistence with the state of [...] Hamas was founded—in the early days of the first Intifada uprising—amid growing Palestinian fury over the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Hamas Covenant was largely crafted by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a quadriplegic and partially blind cleric who was the founder and spiritual leader of the militant militia in Gaza. The first Intifada raged sporadically until 1993, when Yasser Arafat of the PLO signed a partial peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at [...] Since its creation in December 1987, Hamas has invoked militant interpretations of Islam to spearhead a Sunni extremist movement committed to destroying Israel. Hamas distanced itself from the longstanding Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—an umbrella organization for disparate Palestinian factions that ranged from Marxist to secular nationalists—by propagating resistance in the religious context of jihad, or a holy struggle and martyrdom. “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of

• [PDF] The Hamas Network in America: A Short History

  Brotherhood networks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in fact, arrived in the US since the 1960s to study at American universities or as immigrants/refugees (Hamas, as its charter states, is “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine”2). Over time, from the official foundation of Hamas in 1987 onwards, this network increasingly organized itself, creating a relatively large set of public-facing organizations devoted to activities such as funding, lobbying, education and [...] dissemination of propaganda. Since the US government first designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 19973, US authorities have conducted several activities to clamp down on this network, including deporting and prosecuting Hamas operatives and shutting down multiple front organizations. Materials introduced as evidence by the government during these procedures represent an unique treasure trove of information on the otherwise extremely secretive network of Hamas operatives in America.4 [...] Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector (Princeton University Press, 2013); Azzam Tamimi, Hamas: A history from within (Olive Branch, 2010); Matt Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press 2006); Joas Wagemakers, The Muslim Brotherhood: Ideology, history and descendants (Amsterdam University Press, 2022). 2 3 4 Interview with Barry Jonas, trial attorney for the Department of Justice Counter-terrorism Section and prosecutor in the HLF case,

• Israel and the Palestinians: History of the conflict explained - BBC

  In the years that followed, Hamas and Israel fought several major conflicts - including those in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014. A major conflict between the two sides in May 2021 ended in a ceasefire after 11 days. Every round of fighting has seen people killed on both sides, the vast majority of them Palestinians in Gaza. On 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters launched an assault from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people in Israel and taking more than 250 hostages. [...] It proposes an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. It would exist alongside Israel. Israel rejects a two-state solution. It says any final settlement must be the result of negotiations with the Palestinians, and statehood should not be a precondition. The Palestinian Authority backs a two-state solution but Hamas does not because it is opposed to the existence of Israel. [...] 1 hr ago Image 16Image 17: Mourners weep during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza Strip the previous day, outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on July 4, 2025. Hamas says it delivered 'positive response' on Gaza ceasefire plan ------------------------------------------------------------------ The group said it was ready to begin negotiations immediately after Donald Trump said Israel had accepted conditions for a 60-day ceasefire. 1 hr ago Middle

• The Israel Hamas War - The New York Times

  Since Israel and Hamas went to war, reporters and editors at The New York Times have closely covered the conflict. Our coverage includes the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the plight of hostages, how the war in Gaza has devastated the territory and left thousands dead and the flurry of international diplomacy to bring about a cease-fire. [...] Since Israel and Hamas went to war, reporters and editors at The New York Times have closely covered the conflict. Our coverage includes the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the plight of hostages, how the war in Gaza has devastated the territory and left thousands dead and the flurry of international diplomacy to bring about a cease-fire. [...] Credit Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times 5. Behind Hamas’s Bloody Gambit to Create a ‘Permanent’ State of War Hamas leaders say they waged their Oct. 7 attack on Israel because they believed the Palestinian cause was slipping away, and that only violence could revive it. November 9, 2023 By Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib Image 28: Palestinians surveying the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, last month.

• Image

  

• Country

  Palestine

• Founder

  Ahmad Yasin

• Instance Of

  Q138796

• Headquarters

  Gaza City

• Inception Date

  12/10/1987

Hamas (UK: /hæˈmæs, ˈhæmæs/, US: /hɑːˈmɑːs, ˈhɑːmɑːs/; Arabic: حماس, romanized: Ḥamās, IPA: [ħaˈmaːs]; an acronym of حركة المقاومة الإسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election and became the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip following the 2007 Battle of Gaza. It also holds a majority in the parliament of the Palestinian National Authority. Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. New Zealand and Paraguay have designated only its military wing as a terrorist organization. It is not considered a terrorist organization by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria and Turkey. In December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly rejected a U.S. resolution condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal are based in Qatar. Hamas was founded in 1987, soon after the First Intifada broke out, as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which in its Gaza branch had previously been nonconfrontational toward Israel and hostile to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin said in 1987, and the Hamas Charter affirmed in 1988, that Hamas was founded to liberate Palestine, including modern-day Israel, from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since 1994, the group has frequently stated that it would accept a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, paid reparations, allowed free elections in the territories and gave Palestinian refugees the right to return. Israel and Hamas have engaged in several wars of varying intensity. Hamas's military wing has launched attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers, often describing them as retaliations, in particular for assassinations of the upper echelon of their leadership. Tactics have included suicide bombings and, since 2001, rocket attacks. Hamas's rocket arsenal, though mainly consisting of short-range homemade Qassam rockets with a range of 16 km (9.9 mi), also includes Grad-type rockets (21 km (13 mi) by 2009) and longer-range (40 km (25 mi)) that have reached major Israeli towns such as Beer Sheva and Ashdod, and some that have struck cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa. Human Rights Watch has condemned as war crimes and crimes against humanity both Hamas and Israel for attacks on civilians during the conflict, stating that the rationale of reprisals is never valid when civilians are targeted. In the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas won a majority in the PNA Parliament, defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party. After the elections, the Quartet (the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States) made future foreign assistance to the PNA conditional upon the PNA's commitment to nonviolence, recognition of the state of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements. Hamas rejected those conditions, which led the Quartet to suspend its foreign assistance program and Israel to impose economic sanctions on the Hamas-led administration. In March 2007, a national unity government headed by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas was briefly formed, but this failed to restart international financial assistance. Tensions over control of Palestinian security forces soon erupted in the 2007 Battle of Gaza, after which Hamas took control of Gaza, while its officials were ousted from government positions in the West Bank. Israel and Egypt then imposed an economic blockade of the Gaza Strip on the grounds that Fatah forces were no longer providing security there.