Hamas

History

Most of this is taken from the Hamas Wikipedia page. It starts off pretty neutral, but by the time you get to the Second Intifada and the 2006 elections, it gets super biased. Keep this in mind

Summary

• Hamas is a group who left the Muslim Brotherhood because they wanna do violence
• Israel kill a couple Palestinians, Hamas fights back, Israel fucks their shit up tremendously
• Then an Israeli named fucking Goldstein (couldn’t pick a more Jewish name if I tried) shoots up a mosque during Ramadan
• Now Hamas starts killing civilians because “Well if Israel’s gonna do it”
• Palestinians are starting to get really pro “kill the Israelis”, like 86% of them are onboard
• In 2006 Hamas wins the legislative election (not the Prime Minster though)
• The world agrees that Hamas is being a dick so they stop funding them
  • They fund Fatah though (Hamas’ political rival within Palestine)
• In 2008 Israel agrees to allow commercial shipping into Gaza, so that’s nice
• Some more fighting happens but tbh it doesn’t seem super important
• Lead by Khaled Mashal

Origins

• In 1967 Israel starts occupying territory, but the Muslim Brotherhood does not take part of the resistance, instead focusing on socio-religious reform and Islamic values
• In the early 1980s Sheikh Yassin comes in and gets a little more violent
  • This guy was fucking quadripelegic from age 12 and he runs fucking terrorists, that’s wild
  • Started off with a charity organization, that’s cool I guess
• In 1984 he started to gather up arms and got arrested by the Israelis, but got released. He tried again and got some fighters, but they got caught and arms taken again

First Intifada (1987)

• In 1987 Hamas got serious after an Israeli army truck ran over 4 Palestinians at a Gaza checkpoint
• Summary of the First Intifada
  • Basically some Palestinians got mad and started protests/riots
  • Israel fought back way too harshly, got a lot of international flack
  • 80,000 Israel soldiers get involved
  • Israel used live rounds until international news shared some pictures, so they switched to “semi-lethal” plastic bullets
  • The First Intifada Wiki page says a lot of the anti-Israelite people to Palestine, how did that happen?
• Yassin wasn’t directly commanding the org but he gave it his blessing
• The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood gave it’s approval too
• Lots of Palestinians viewed it as an Islamic version of what the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) used to be
• Hamas branched off the Muslim Brotherhood because the later refused to engage in violence against Israel
• 1989 is their first strike against Israel, abducting and killing a couple soldiers
  • Israel got mad as fuck and kinda dismantled the whole org, they had to restructure a lot
• In 1990 Muslims got mad that the Jewish tried to rebuild their temple again, Israeli cops shot some Palestinians, and Hamas got mad again
• “jihad against the Zionist enemy everywhere, in all fronts and every means”
• They got this engineering student Ayyash involved who was good at making bombs, Basically made all the suicide bombs until he got assassinated
• In 1992 Israel exiled a whole bunch of Hamas members, and then they connected with Hezbollah
  • TODO: Another rabbit hole
• By late 1993 their support among Palestinians rose from <3% to 13%
  • At this point Fatah had 45% support, so a lot more

Oslo Years (1994)

• Named after the Oslo Accords
  • A bunch of agreements between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)
  • Hamas was not a fan of this
• In 1994 this Jewish settler named Goldstein (of course) shot up a mosque, killed 29 Muslims during Ramadan. This was in Hebron, south of Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem
• Palestine’s PM Arafat condemned the massacre but refused to withdraw troops from the city, Hebron
  • Remember, Arafat is in the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas
• Hamas responds that if Israel doesn’t discriminate between “fighters and civilians” then it would be “forced… To treat the Zionists in the same manner. Treating like with like is a universal principle”
  • Fucking YIKES
• The Hebron massacre had a huge effect on Hamas’ militancy
  • For the first 7 years they only attacked “legitimate military targets”, but after the massacre they stopped giving a fuck
  • “Musa Abu Marzouk put the blame for the escalation on the Israelis: ‘We were against targeting civilians … After the Hebron massacre we determined that it was time to kill Israel’s civilians … we offered to stop if Israel would, but they rejected that offer.’ ”
• In 1997, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal who was in Jordan
• It almost works but the assassins get caught, and Jordan only releases them on the condition that Israel releases Yassin
  • He was the quadriplegic guy. Ran the charity, wanted peace
• “Yassin declared: ‘There will be no halt to armed operations until the end of the occupation … we are peace-seekers. We love peace. And we call on them [the Israelis] to maintain peace with us and to help us in order to restore our rights by peace.’ ”
• At this point, 70% of Palestinians were against the suicide bombings, and 59% wanted Arafat to take action to prevent further attacks. 41% trusted Arafat but only 3% trusted Yassin
  • Support was waning
  • Yasser Arafat used to be the leader of the PNA. See Was Hamas democratically elected?

Second Intifada (2000) (Long section)

The Wikipedia section on this is hella biased on this topic

• Right out the gate violence this time, not like the first one

• Up to 86% of Palestinians endorsed violence against Israelis

• Up to 17% supported Hamas

• 5000 Palestinians and 1100 Israelis were killed

  • Almost half of Israeli deaths were suicide attacks

• According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to Hamas’ quid pro quo agreement to stop killing civilians

  • Sounds pretty biased though
  • Hamas was/is civilians as human shields. In 2023 their main base of operations is literally underneath the main hospital

• Apparently (again, sounds biased as fuck) Yassin said they’d be peaceful for 10 years if they were given back the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and in response Israel assassinated Yassin

  • See what I mean? Sounds so biased

• Hamas boycotted the 2005 presidential election, but participated in the legislative election

  • This explains my confusion about the dual government situation. The Wikipedia article is starting to get biased as fuck. This is an actual quote from the article: “Hamas ran on a platform of clean government, a thorough overhaul of the corrupt administrative system, and the issue of rampant lawlessness. The PA, notoriously riddled with corruption, chose to run Marwan Barghouti as its leading candidate, who was serving five life sentences in Israel” PA = Palestinian Authority, Fatah-controlled government party Partial control over West Bank areas A and B since the Oslo Accords (1993-1995) Controlled Gaza prior to the 2007/2008 election TODO: The heck is this Area A/B/C stuff?

• Something something Hamas wins the legislative elections by a decent margin (~66%)

• EU says that the election was fair. They fund Palestine for a bit but then stop. They keep funding Fatah though

  • Remember, Fatah hates Hamas

• The Quartet said it would only help Palestine if Hamas renounced violence and recognized Israel, and agreed to the previous agreements

• Hamas obviously said no, and then the Quartet froze all international aid

• Hamas and Fatah start fighting internally

• 2006 and 2007 is messy as fuck

  • Hamas and Israel kill each other a bunch
  • Hamas and Fatah kill each other a bunch
    • Saudis tried to help reach an agreement but failed
  • President Abbas tries to outlaw the Hamas militia
    • I touch on this somewhere else in this doc. TODO: link to that section
  • Not really relevant, but there were supposed to be elections in 2014 and 2021 and they just did not happen. See Was Hamas democratically elected?

• In June 2008 there’s an informal truce in exchange for Israel allowing commercial shipping to Gaza

• In December 2008 Hamas said they’ll renew the truce if Israel chills

• Hamas keeps shooting rockets, Israel does Operation Cast Lead, aka the “Gaza War”

• Israel tried sending messages to Gazans to leave areas they were going to attack, but Gazans basically said “Where the fuck are we supposed to go? You’re attacking everywhere”

  • I’ve read conflicting stuff on this, basically arguing how effective Israel’s communication has been with the Gazan civilians
  • Some say Israel’s communication was shit, others say Hamas uses the civilians as “human shields”

• Israel declares a unilateral ceasefire, Hamas agrees, allowing Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza

After the war

• Hamas leader Khaled Mashal tries to make friends with Obama, doesn’t work out
• Syrian Civil War happens, Hamas either leaves or is forced out of Syria? Either way Hamas and Syria are fighting now

2014 Gaza War until 2022

• Israel launches Operation Protective Edge to counter Hamas rockets
• Abbas still hates Hamas
• Hamas starts working with Egypt to crack down on Islamic terrorists in Sinai in return for economic aid
  • Sinai is the bit of Egypt that sticks out past the Gulf of Suez
• Hamas and Fatah sign a reconciliation agreement, now they’re running the government together again

Important people

Hamas: Who are the group’s most prominent leaders? - BBC

ngl never heard of half these guys, might be totally unimportant

Khaled Meshaal

• Head of the political bureau abroad
• One of the founders
• Netanyahu poisoned this guy, and then King Hussein of Jordan was like “Come on man, just give him the antidote”
• Palestinian crowds welcomed him in 2012 when he came back to Gaza

Ismail Nahiyeh

• Considered the “overall leader”
• To succeed Meshaal as head
• He was exiled for a while in the 80s and 90s
• Got elected as Prime Minster of Palestine in 2006 by Abbas after Hamas won the election, but then he got dismissed after they ousted Fatah
• Head of Hamas’ political bureau
• Designated a terrorist by the US DoS
• Chillin’ in Qatar atm

Yahya Sinwar

• Leader within Gaza
• Founder of Majd, the Hamas security service
• Head of the political bureau
• Also designated a terrorist

Mohammed Deif aka “The Mastermind”

• Leads the military arm
• His right-hand man is Marwan Issa
• Constructed the tunnels in and out of Israel
• Very few pictures of him, ngl this guy’s kinda cool in a spooky way. Picture’s meh though

Ahmed Yassin

• Founder of Hamas
  • It was peaceful back then, he ran a charity
• This legend was quadriplegic and nearly blind
• He was imprisoned by Israel for years until Jordan made Israel release him
  • King Mohammed is a fucking legend