Hamas

What is Hamas? One answer is clear: It’s the Islamist group that for a dozen years has ruled the Gaza Strip, an impoverished sliver of Mediterranean coastline between Israel and Egypt that’s home to 1.9 million Palestinians. Beyond that, perceptions of the group differ. Some say it’s a terrorist group that poses a grave obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a gang of thugs that seized the Gaza Strip at gunpoint. Others argue it’s a true representative of Palestinians that won credibility with its grassroots charitable work and the perception that it’s less corrupt than its rival, the Fatah party. Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction, while Fatah, which for a decade has governed just in the West Bank, has been Israel’s occasional partner in peace talks.

After showing some hints of softening, Hamas has been agitating for renewed conflict with Israel since late 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the contested city Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In March 2018, the group and other political factions began a campaign of protests along the Gaza border that grew into violent confrontations with Israeli forces. In March 2019, two separate rocket attacks from Gaza on central Israel, which Palestinian groups said were accidental, elicited a strong Israeli response. Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which is charged with administering the Gaza Strip and West Bank under various agreements with Israel, have been engaged in intermittent talks for Hamas to cede governance of Gaza. But the negotiations have failed amid mutual recriminations and Hamas’s refusal to give up its weapons. In mid-2017, Hamas released a manifesto in which, for the first time, it accepted Fatah’s goal of establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, Hamas continues to refuse to recognize Israel next door and suggests such a state would be an interim step toward taking over Israel. And it continues to embrace armed struggle.