The origins of Hamas
Contrary to the current Israeli narrative, the Hamas political party is by no means central to the problems in Palestine as can be appreciated by the brief history of Palestine presented in this booklet.
Although Hamas was founded in December 1987, its roots date back to the 1950's when many of Hamas founding leaders were children who's minds were being formed by the appalling atrocities they witnessed by Israelis against their family and community members. For example, when Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi (successor to Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' founding leader) was eight or nine he witnessed the Khan Yunis massacre in the Southern Gaza Strip when he saw Israeli soldiers kill his uncle in front of him - he claimed this fact was a very important factor in determining the direction of his future life.[Hamas2]
Prior the the actual founding of Hamas, it has been asserted that Israel was funding its creation as far back of the 1970s - this has been openly acknowledged by former Israeli officials, with a reason being that it was a means of undermining secular Palestinian factions such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),[Hamas3] and to destabilise Palestine so that Israel could justify taking heavy action against it.
To support this, at a Likud party conference in 2019, Benyamin Netanyahu said:
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas... This is part of our strategy - to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
Although Hamas' actions on the day of October 7th 2023 cannot be justified, this event provided just the excuse that Israel was hoping for to justify its actions against Gaza (and indeed the West Bank) since then.
Please see the Hamas entry in the Glossary for a little more information.