the Palestinian Hamas movement launched a surprise attack from Gaza on Israel, in an escalation considered the most dangerous in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years.
Hamas said the attack was motivated by what it described as escalating Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
What is Hamas?
The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian Intifada. The group enjoys support from Iran and adopts the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in the 1920s.
Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, after a short civil war against the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who exercises his powers from the West Bank and also heads the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Hamas’ control of Gaza came in the wake of its victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the last time those elections were held. Hamas accused Abbas of conspiring against it, while Abbas described what happened as a coup.
A person holding a rifle clad in black clothing, a black mask and a green headband with Arabic writing on it.
A Palestinian militant from the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a military wing of Hamas. Source: AP / Adel Hana/AP
Since then, there have been numerous rounds of conflict with Israel, often involving Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and Israeli air strikes and bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas refuses to recognize the State of Israel and strongly opposed the Oslo peace agreements negotiated by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s.
Hamas has an armed wing called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas describes its armed activities as resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Its 1988 founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, although Hamas leaders have at times offered a long-term truce with Israel in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state on all Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by Australia, Israel, the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan.
Hamas is part of a regional alliance that includes Iran, Syria and Hezbollah that generally opposes US policy in the Middle East and Israel.
Why did Hamas launch a large-scale attack on Israel now?
Hamas said its latest attack was caused by Israel’s escalating attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif said: “This is the day of the great battle to end the last occupation on the face of the earth,” announcing the start of the operation through Hamas media and calling on Palestinians everywhere to fight.
Gaza has witnessed four wars between Hamas and Israel since the movement took control of the Strip in 2007.
This escalation comes against the backdrop of escalating violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule, which Hamas opposes.
According to an analysis by Reuters, the West Bank has witnessed increasing Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks, and attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages. The analysis indicates that the conditions of the Palestinians worsened under the extreme right-wing government of Netanyahu, amid a complete cessation of the peace process that extended for years.
Other concerns in the Middle East are behind the latest attack
The Reuters analysis believes that Hamas’ attack on Israel was at least partly aimed at recent efforts to form new regional security alliances that could threaten Palestinian aspirations for establishing an independent state and the ambitions of Iran, the movement’s main backer.
The attack coincides with US-backed moves to push Saudi Arabia toward normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for a defense deal between Washington and Riyadh, a move that would rein in the recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Tehran.
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Reuters said that Palestinian officials and a regional source said that the Hamas attack was also a message that the Palestinians cannot be ignored if Israel wants security and that any Saudi agreement would undermine the détente with Iran.
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera, “All the normalization agreements that you (the Arab countries) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict.”
An informed regional source added: “This is a message to Saudi Arabia, and to the Americans who support normalization and support Israel. There will be no security in the entire region as long as the Palestinians remain outside the equation.”
The source said: “What happened exceeds all expectations. Today is a turning point in the conflict
