Hamas

News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (December 12 – December 18, 2018)

This past week events focused on four shooting, stabbing and vehicular attacks, three in the Ramallah area (one in the Old City in Jerusalem). In the "return march" and mini-flotilla in the Gaza Strip the level of violence was relatively low despite the escalation in Judea and Samaria. The IDF located a fourth Hezbollah tunnel near the Israel-Lebanon border. UNIFIL confirmed the existence of four tunnels, two of which crossed the border. Read more...

Recent Increase in Terrorist Attacks in Judea and Samaria (The situation on the ground)

Since September 2018 there has been an increase in the number of significant terrorist attacks carried out in Judea and Samaria. Five adults were killed in the attacks, and a three-day-old baby, born prematurely because of his mother's injuries. During 2018 54 terrorist attacks were carried out in Judea and Samaria. Read more...

Spotlight on Iran (December 2, 2018 – December 16, 2018)

Iran is keeping a low profile with regards to the “Northern Shield” operation carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to destroy Hezbollah tunnels along Israel’s border with Lebanon. The Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)’s Qods Force, Qasem Soleimani, visited Iraq and met with the country’s grand mufti. An extraordinary commentary published in the reformist Iranian paper harshly criticized Hamas Read more...

News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (December 5 – December 11, 2018)

Events this past week focused on the shooting attack at the Ofra Junction (northeast of Ramallah). In addition, this past week there were two vehicular attacks. On Friday, December 4, 2018, the 37th "return march" was held along the Israel-Gaza Strip border. Operation Northern Shield continues exposing and neutralizing Hezbollah tunnels that penetrate into Israeli territory from Lebanon. Read more...

News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (November 28 – December 4, 2018)

On December 4, 2018, Operation Northern Shield began along Israel's border with Lebanon. Its objective is to expose and neutralize Hezbollah terrorist attack tunnels penetrating from Lebanon into Israeli territory. This past week a "return march" and a mini-flotilla were held along the Gaza-Israeli border without exceptional violence towards the IDF. The United States has proposed a UN resolution condemning Hamas and other terrorist organizations for rocket fire at Israel, and using resources meant for the population for their military buildup. Read more...

Senior Hamas figure presents Hamas’ concept of the arrangement as implemented after the most recent round of escalation.

On December 3, 2018, during the most recent mini-flotilla and its accompanying demonstration in the northern Gaza Strip, Fathi Hamad, a member of Hamas' political bureau, was interviewed by al-Jazeera. In the interview he clarified Hamas' concept of the arrangement with Israel, as implemented after the latest round of escalation (November 12-13 2018). Read more...

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Hamas

Hamas is a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim organization founded in the Gaza Strip in 1987 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. It seeks to establish an Islamic state on the entire territory of the State of Israel and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

The Hamas leadership has two branches: the internal leadership, which includes the military wing and the de-facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, responsible for the day-to-day activities of governing the Gaza Strip population, in addition to social, educational activity vis-à-vis the population of the Gaza Strip; and the external leadership, Hamas’s political bureau, located beyond the borders of the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria. The external leadership maintains relations with various countries and bodies, and deals mainly with raising money and finding other resources for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s ideology seeks to establish an Islamic Palestinian state on the entire territory of Israel. The preferred way to achieve this goal is through armed struggle. Hamas has a military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which carries out terrorist attacks against Israel, including rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and various kinds of other attacks (such as shooting, suicide bombings, abductions etc.) in the territories of Judea, Samaria and Israel.

Over the years, Hamas has challenged the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, causing conflicts between the sides, culminating in June 2007 with Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip and the suppression of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority members. Ever since, the rift between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority has grown.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, including Israel, the United States, and the European Union.