Michael Jacobs, Ken Stein, and Scott Abramson, November 1, 2024
These entries cover the 2023-2024 Hamas-Israel war, the Hamas-Israel relationship over time and statements by Hamas leaders about destroying Israel and killing Jews. Endorsement of Hamas to become a critical negotiating partner for Israel appears in a separate listing, with former President Jimmy Carter the most notable public figure to support Hamas in this way.
The entries assembled here cover the last quarter century; some are from Arabic and Hebrew sources. Entries included are meant to describe Hamas’ political history, its role in the competition for leadership within the Palestinian community, and its relations with Middle Eastern countries, particular Iran. The timeline might be best used along with a detailed, monthly (updated) annotated bibliography of Hamas.
The high points in Hamas’ history are its founding in 1987, its takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the five wars with Israel, including the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel killing 1200 Israelis and kidnapping 251 others, Israel’s extraordinary military response to that attack on Hamas’s rule in Gaza, the Israeli killing of dozens of prominent Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar in July and October 2024, respectively, and spawning a much broader assault on Israel’s existence than just from the Gaza strip coming from Hamas ideological allies that similarly sought Israel’s destruction.
Specifically, Hamas’s terrorist attack on in 2023-2024 triggered a war of attrition by those insurgencies, terrorists, and militias, as well as Iran that engaged Hamas and Hezbollah, remained actively seeking Israel’s destruction, demoralization of Israelis, and general delegitimating of the Jewish state. Hezbollah, as Iranian proxy organization and deeply entrenched in Lebanese society and its political system actively joined Hamas’s armed attacks against Israel, renewing its prolonged ideological and military efforts in seeking Israel’s demise. In the months after October 2023, few would have anticipated that Iran and Israel, as a result of Hamas’s attacks would find themselves in direct military confrontations but remained short of full scale war.
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded in the Gaza Strip in December 1987. In August 1988, the movement issued its charter, declaring its unyielding determination to use jihad to replace Israel with Palestine. Hamas traces its ideological roots to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was organized in Egypt in the late 1920s, advocates Islamic-based government, and rejects Western cultural penetration, secularism, individual rights and democratic freedoms. With poverty growing in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ mosque networks delivered food, mentoring, education, afternoon day care, medical assistance and religious indoctrination. Support for a fervent Islamic path was catalyzed by individual mosque leaders who rejected Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peacemaking with Israel in the 1970s. The Islamic revolution in Iran that toppled the secular Shah and spread fundamentalist Islamic ideology across countries in the Middle East landed on favorable ears in the Gaza Strip as well. During the First Intifada, starting in late 1987, Hamas urged Palestinians to confront Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza. It coordinated labor strikes against Israel and conducted a campaign to try to make Muslims adhere to a strict Islamic code.
In 1988, Hamas issued its charter, remarkably like the 1964/1968 PLO Covenant, calling for armed struggle against Israel and the liberation of Palestine, with an emphasis on Islamic fervor and doctrine to guide the Palestinian present and future. In 2006, Hamas won legislative elections against the Palestinian Authority-leading Fatah, then in a violent coup in 2007 forced the PA out of the Gaza Strip. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 to test Palestinian intentions in self-rule; Hamas eventually evolved massive autocratic control over the Gaza population.
Hamas’ leaders brought vast sums of cash from Qatar and other Arab sources to build a huge underground infrastructure of tunnels and a military organization to keep a tight grip on the 2.4 million Palestinians there. One of its stated goals was to ensure a prolonged capacity to sustain any Israeli attacks against Hamas rule. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 and kidnapping more the 240. It became the flash point for the Hamas-Israel war, during which Israel killed Hamas’ most prominent leaders.
The war in Gaza resulted in the displacement and killing of thousands of Palestinians as they fled from Israel’s response to the October 2023 attack. The war was the longest in Israel’s history, costing it several thousand dead and injured. The war, though initiated by Hamas and joined by Hezbollah, evolved into major military and missile clashes between Israel and Iran. Both countries found the other’s policies and political leaders to be their No. 1 physical and ideological enemies.
October 26, 2024 — In a proportional response to Iran’s Oct. 1 missile attack, in a pre-dawn attack the Israeli Air Force dispatched more than 100 aircraft to Iran, striking multiple military facilities. Targets included military bases, air defense systems, missile production facilities and factories used to produce fuel for Iran’s long-distance missiles. The attack left the Iranian regime with virtually no air defenses against another Israeli attack, should it come. The Israelis did not target either Iran’s oil facilities or its nuclear weapons production capabilities. The U.S. government responded by warning Iran not to respond to this Israeli action. Israel’s attack occurred 10 days before the U.S. presidential election, with little comment from either major candidate. For Israel, it was the most complicated and most distant attack against an enemy in the state’s history.
October 16, 2024 — The IDF kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre, Sinwar had been the prime target of an Israeli manhunt ever since. For decades, he had been among the most virulent and uncompromising advocate for hating Israel and killing Jews. The attack stunned Israeli society while elevating Hamas’ prestige among most Palestinians and others who despised Israel’s existence.
October 13, 2024 — A Hezbollah-launched drone strikes the Israeli Golani Brigade’s barracks outside Binyamina, 20 miles south of Haifa. Four soldiers are killed, and more than 60 are injured, several critically.
October 3, 2024 — Less than a week after killing Hassan Nasrallah, Israel assassinates his presumptive successor as the head of Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine. Nasrallah’s cousin, Safieddine led Hezbollah’s executive council, his official election as secretary-general just days away.
October 1, 2024 — In reprisal for Israel’s assassination of the leaders of two of Iran’s most favored clients, Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Iran fires 181 ballistic missiles at Israel. Besides being the second-ever direct Iranian attack against Israel — the first was April 13 — the bombardment is the largest ballistic missile attack in history. Israel, the U.S. Navy and Jordan intercept all but several dozen missiles. An Israeli military base, a restaurant and a school are damaged, and a Palestinian is killed.
September 30, 2024 — After months of cross-border incursions, Israel initiates a limited ground invasion of Lebanon. Israeli commandos are supported by air cover and artillery barrages from Israel. More than 1 million Lebanese flee north, away from the fighting in the south and in Beirut, with hundreds of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters killed or wounded. Israel’s objective is to free southern Lebanon of Hezbollah actions and threats against northern Israel, so that Israelis (some 65,000) can return to homes they evacuated in October 2023 after Hezbollah launched almost daily missile barrages to support Hamas’ attacks on southern Israel.
September 29, 2024 — Dozens of Israeli aircraft carry out strikes against the Houthis at the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah in western Yemen. Israeli targets fuel installations, power plants and docks in retaliation for the Houthis’ unsuccessful ballistic missile attack against Israel the previous day.
September 27, 2024 — The IDF assassinates the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. For 32 of Hezbollah’s 40 years, he led the group’s transformation from a band of guerrillas into a disciplined, highly equipped fighting force focused on Israel’s destruction. The assassination of Nasrallah is a major coup for Israel, as it goes a long way toward restoring Israeli deterrence and prestige eroded since Oct. 7, 2023. His killing, along with a dozen other Hezbollah commanders, severely dents the organization’s command and control, but those killings do not stop Hezbollah attacks against the Israeli population.
September 17 and 18, 2024 — Killing dozens and wounding thousands, an Israeli intelligence operation blows up thousands of pagers and handheld radios booby-trapped with explosives. Hezbollah had purchased the communications devices and distributed them to its members in the hope of avoiding Israeli tracking and targeting of cellphones. This Mossad operation culminates years of planning in multiple countries.
September 9, 2024 — In its largest sortie in Syria since the April 1 attack on an Iranian Consulate-adjacent building in Damascus that killed multiple Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders, Israel strikes a military installation near Masyaf, in northern Syria, where chemical arms are reportedly manufactured and Iranian technicians housed.
August 31, 2024 — The IDF recovers the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel beneath Rafah. The hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been murdered by Hamas, execution style, a few hours before their corpses were found. Days later it is discovered that the hostages had been kept under torturous conditions.
July 31, 2024 — Israel assassinates Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the Hamas Politburo and one of the organization’s most senior leaders, while he is on a state visit in Tehran. An explosive that was planted in a guesthouse for visiting dignitaries two months earlier is detonated remotely. His killing does not alter Hamas’ guerrilla warfare against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
July 30, 2024 — Israel embarks on a targeted assassination campaign against Hezbollah’s senior leaders, beginning with Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s pre-eminent military commander, and culminates two months later with the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and dozens of other high-ranking organization officials, as well as the wounding of thousands of Hezbollah operatives, by the end of September.
July 27, 2024 — Hezbollah fires an Iranian-made rocket at the Druze village of Majdal Shams, near Mount Hermon, killing 12 soccer-playing children, all Druze Israelis. In reprisal, Israel begins a sweeping campaign of targeted assassinations days later.
July 24, 2024 — Amid the Biden administration’s calls for a cease-fire and faltering attempts to achieve one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress, where he focuses on Iran as the core culprit in the region for anti-Israeli and antisemitic actions. Netanyahu becomes the only foreign leader besides Winston Churchill to address Congress four times.
July 20, 2024 — Israel carries out airstrikes against the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, a stronghold of the Houthis. The day before, the Houthis executed a drone attack, evading Israeli air defenses, near the American diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv, killing one and injuring five.
June 8, 2024 — Israel Defense Forces rescue four Israeli hostages held by Hamas; 120 hostages remain unaccounted for, others having died in captivity. More than 20,000 Palestinians have lost their lives or been injured since the war began, more than three hundred Israeli soldiers killed and another 3,000 seriously injured.
May 31, 2024 — President Biden announces that “Israel has now offered a comprehensive new proposal for an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages transmitted by Qatar to Hamas.” It contained three phases. He volunteers the US to forge a diplomatic solution to the war, addresses rebuilding Gaza, and acknowledges that great detail remains unanswered. There is no mention of two-states as a political outcome. He poses the possibility of a historic Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement if this deal is implemented, which Hamas totally opposes.
May 20, 2024 — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a tribunal that claims worldwide jurisdiction, petitions the court’s judges to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The chief prosecutor aims to have the two Israeli leaders tried for war crimes. In response, Israel announces its creation of a special “command center” to combat the ICC’s proceedings. In 2009, the UN makes a similar claim that both Hamas and Israel had engaged in war crimes against one another.
May 19, 2024 — Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian die in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran. In the two months leading up to the October 7 massacre, Abdollahian had met with Hamas representatives in Lebanon on at least two occasions to discuss the attack.
May 7, 2024 — Over American objections, Israel moves into the southern Gazan city of Rafah, Hamas’s last major stronghold, where the terrorist group’s last four in-tact battalions are dug in. Although the Israeli operation is a limited incursion, not a full-scale invasion, Israel seizes the crucial Rafah Crossing, the passageway between Gaza and Egypt through which Hamas’s supply lines run. In the weeks following its takeover of the Rafah Crossing, Israel would unearth more than 50 cross-border tunnels.
April 19, 2024 — In retaliation for the Iranian attack a week earlier and under American pressure to avoid an escalation that could lead to all-out war, Israel carries out a limited airstrike in central Iran against the radar of Iran’s vaunted Russian-supplied S-300 air defense system. The precision strike was intended to signal to Iran that Israel can attack Iranian installations while evading detection.
April 13-14, 2024 — In reprisal for Israel’s April 1 assassination of General Zahedi, Iran launches some 350 attack drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel. The volley is the first major direct Iranian attack against Israel in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year war against the Jewish state. The assault is also the first time Israel has come under missile fire from another state since Iraq lobbed 43 Scud missiles at Israel in 1991. While the Iranian attack is a thudding failure for Tehran, the Israeli defense is a resounding triumph for Jerusalem. About 99 percent of the Iranian projectiles are intercepted by Israel’s multi-layered defense system or shot down by Israel, Jordan, France, the U.K., and the United States. What’s more, by repulsing the Iranian attack, Israel restored a measure of the deterrence it lost on October 7, it demonstrated its technological superiority with an impressive display of its defensive capabilities, and it proved, for the first time, the strength of the anti-Iran coalition of Arab and Western states.
April 1, 2024 — Israel mounts airstrikes against the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, killing seven, including the general responsible for Tehran’s operations in Syria and Lebanon. The commander Israel targeted, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was the most senior Iranian officer assassinated since January 2020, when Washington took out Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force. Iran vows revenge against Israel.
March 2, 2024 — Amid an increasingly acute food shortage in Gaza, the United States, in coordination with Jordan, launches the inaugural operation in a new humanitarian campaign for Gaza relief. Three American cargo planes overfly Gaza, parachuting down almost 40,000 ready-to-eat meals. The U.S. follows the lead of other countries (the U.K. and France among them) that have made airdrops to Gaza.
February 26, 2024 — Prime Minister Netanyahu announces his “day after” plan for postwar Gaza. The brief plan, which consists more of broad guidelines than specific details, lays down that Israel will maintain a buffer zone on the Gaza border and complete “operational freedom of activity in the entire Gaza Strip.” Israel will also establish a “‘southern closure’ on the Gaza-Egypt border in order to prevent the re-intensification of terrorist elements in the Gaza Strip.” Israel will preside over the “demilitarization” and “deradicalization” of Gaza and “shut down UNRWA.” However, “civil administration and responsibility for public order in the Gaza Strip will be based on local officials with administrative experience.”
February 3, 2024 — The U.S. launches retaliatory strikes on Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq after three American soldiers are killed by an Iranian client in late January. The American response comes after 150 attacks by Iranian proxies on American targets since the start of the war.
January 26, 2024 — At least a dozen employees of UNRWA (the U.N.’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees) are identified as having participated in the October 7 massacre while several thousands of UNRWA teachers celebrated the carnage on social media.
January 23, 2024 — The IDF lays siege to Khan Yunis, a day after sustaining more casualties in a single day since the start of Operation Swords of Iron.
January 2, 2024 — In a crushing blow to the terrorist organization, Israel assassinates Hamas’s most senior official based in Lebanon, Saleh al-Arouri, on January 2. Al-Arouri was the deputy chairman of Hamas’s Politburo, but his responsibilities were hardly limited to political affairs. He was also Hamas’s principal liaison with its foremost foreign sponsor, Iran, and with Iran’s Lebanese surrogate, Hezbollah. What’s more, al-Arouri, a co-founder of Hamas’s armed wing, was in charge of Hamas’s operational activity in the West Bank, in which capacity he helped orchestrate the casus belli of the 2014 Israel-Hamas War: the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers.
January 1, 2024 — Almost exactly a year after the current government is sworn in, the Israeli Supreme Court issues two rulings that, together, take an axe to the central plank of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political platform: limiting the power of the Israeli judiciary. In a 8-7 decision, the high court reinstates “the reasonableness clause” repealed by the Knesset in July 2023, restoring to the court the power to overturn government decisions it judges “unreasonable.” In a companion decision carried by an even larger majority (12-3), the court affirms its right to judicial review of Israel’s most important legislation, its 14 Basic Laws. Improbable though it may seem on the face of it, the judicial reform campaign that these two rulings have ended or, at the very least, suspended, does in fact relate to the war. In the months leading up to October 7, Israel’s military intelligence agency, Aman, sent four letters to the premier transmitting the same message: the social divisions created by the judicial overhaul were eroding Israeli deterrence. This warning was to prove well founded, as a captured Hamas commando told his Israeli interrogator, “We were encouraged by the demonstrations in Israel.” On the same day as these two landmark rulings, Israel announces it is beginning to draw down its forces, deescalating its military campaign in Gaza. In northern Gaza, Israel transitions from fighting a war to suppressing an insurgency.
December 26, 2023 — Israeli forces launch a ground offensive in central Gaza, where Hamas is hunkered down in refugee camps.
December 6, 2023 — Israel enters Khan Yunis, the strategic keystone of the southern half of Gaza and the enclave’s second-largest city. Besides its symbolic importance as the hometown of Yahya Sinwar (the leader of Hamas in Gaza) and Mohammed Deif (the head of Hamas’s military wing), Khan Yunis is the home territory of Hamas’s best fighting force, the Khan Yunis Brigade.
December 1, 2023 — Before the ceasefire ends, Hamas fires rockets into Israel and reneges on its commitment to releasing fifteen additional children and two women. With 137 Israelis still held hostage and following a weeklong ceasefire, hostilities resume. Israel’s Office of the Prime Minister releases a statement affirming its aims: “Upon the resumption of fighting, we emphasize: The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.” Israel redirects its offensive from Gaza City to the southern half of the Gaza Strip.
November 22-30, 2023 — Following weeks of mediation by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, Hamas and Israel agree to a prisoner-for-hostage exchange and a four-day ceasefire. During the ceasefire, which begins on November 24, Hamas releases 50 Israeli hostages from almost two months of captivity, and Israel releases 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Israel proposes to extend the ceasefire for each ten additional captives released by Hamas. The ceasefire is twice extended, first for two days on November 27, then for an additional day on November 29. What was to have been a four-day ceasefire is thus prolonged to one week, during which 240 Palestinians are released from Israeli prisons and 81 Israelis from Hamas’s captivity.
November 15, 2023 — Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility, Shifa Hospital, under which Hamas’s command and control center is burrowed, falls to Israeli forces. The IDF discovers weapons caches, a network of stone-and-concrete tunnel shafts, and the headquarters of Hamas’s company and battalion commanders.
November 14, 2023 — 300,000 American Jews converge on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to register their solidarity with the Jewish state. The “March for Israel” makes history as the largest-ever demonstration by American Jewry.
October 27, 2023— Having so far limited its infantry attacks to raids and incursions, Israel launches a ground invasion, moving on northern Gaza. The following week, Israel lays siege to Gaza City, the largest city in the Palestinian territories and the seat of Hamas’s operational command.
October 24, 2023 — Ghazi Hamad, “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth. Because we have the determination.” Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad, October 24, 2023, Lebanese Broadcast Corporation
October 18, 2023 — In the first-ever wartime visit of a sitting American president to the Jewish state, Joe Biden arrives in Israel in a show of solidarity with the embattled country. Biden’s visit comes in the wake of several other presidential measures in support of Israel, among them the deployment of two aircraft-carrier strike groups to the Middle East and the placement of a 2,000-strong rapid response team on high alert.
October 9, 2023 — A day after the Israeli government declares war, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announces a total blockade on the Gaza Strip and the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, the swiftest and largest call-up in Israeli history. Israel’s stated objective is to neutralize Hamas and destroy its military infrastructure.
October 8, 2023 — The Israeli government formally declares war for the first time in a half-century. In a show of nonpartisan solidarity and with the approval of the Knesset, members of the opposition join their political rivals to form a national unity government. Meanwhile, Hezbollah begins shelling Israel.
October 7, 2023 — As dawn rises over Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas launches “Operation al-Aqsa Flood,” an assault on Israel that unites the organization’s two reasons for existing: to wage jihad (holy war) and to kill Jews. To Hamas, this is no mere military offensive; it is a sacred mission. After breaching the Gaza barrier and entering Israel under a hail of rockets, the terrorists spread out over a 30-mile zone surrounding Gaza, swarming dozens of civilian settlements and military installations. Then, they carry out their orders: “Kill as many people and take as many hostages as possible,” as commanded by the instructions set down in a notebook later found on a terrorist’s corpse. With this barbarous objective in view, Hamas slaughters, without distinction, every living thing it encounters: Jews and Arabs, Israelis and foreigners, elderly and infants, men and women, civilians and soldiers, humans and dogs. The unspeakable brutality shocks the conscience of civilized humanity, and by day’s end, some 1,200 people lay dead in Israel with 240 in captivity in Gaza. Hamas’s atrocities open the fifth–and the deadliest and longest–war between Israel and Hamas since 2008, as Israel responds with Operation Swords of Iron.
September 22, 2022 — In his only speech to the U.N. General Assembly as prime minister, Yair Lapid criticizes the hatred spread by Hamas and its sponsor, Iran, and urges the people of Gaza to reject the violence of Hamas.
May 26, 2021 — Yahyah Sinwar, Eradication of Israel — “I’d like to use this opportunity to warn the Zionist occupation and its leaders. We support the eradication of Israel through armed Jihad and struggle. This is our doctrine. Our complete gratitude is extended to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has spared us and the other Palestinian resistance factions nothing in recent years. They have provided us with money, weapons, and expertise. They have supported us in everything, with the grace of Allah. They deserve huge credit” https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-leader-gaza-yahya-sinwar-we-have-500-km-of-tunnels-in-gaza
April 2021 — Schisms in Palestinian Arab National Movement — “Elections are not the answer.” The schism undermines the legitimacy of the entire Palestinian political system, severely compromising the PLO’s claim to be the sole Palestinian representative. Despite recurrent calls to hold elections and agree on a common national program, neither Hamas nor Fatah, the two dominant Palestinian political forces, has offered a convincing answer as to how to end the rift. And even if elections do take place, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently decreed, they will serve only to legitimize an ailing political system, not to facilitate a genuine transfer of power: neither side is prepared to hand over power to the other, making elections little more than a sham. “A Palestinian Reckoning,” Foreign Affairs, April 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2021-02-16/palestinian-reckoning
May 10, 2021 — Fighting breaks out between Israel and Hamas for the fourth time, but for the first time the air war is not directly connected to events along the Gaza-Israel border. Instead, Hamas issues an ultimatum related to violence in Jerusalem at Al-Aqsa mosque and protests in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, then launches rocket barrages at population centers across Israel. The rocket fire and airstrikes continue until May 21.
February 26, 2021 — “The Palestinian leadership has failed on three fundamental, crucial issues that have produced regression, attenuation, and weakness in the face of a superior national, ethnic, religious, and human enemy, Israel. First: It failed to contend with the bloody [Hamas/Gaza] 2007 coup and its fallout; second, It failed to utilize practical methods of confrontation on the ground so as to raise the cost of the occupation, and as a result, it failed to combat Israel’s settlement expansion, and its gradual multi-stage programs that seek to Hebraize, Israelize, and Judaize Jerusalem and the Palestinian West Bank; Third: It failed to maintain Fatah’s internal cohesion and unity as a party and organization and did not heed the brotherly Arab advice and friendly international input highlighting the need, first, to maintain Fatah’s unity so as to confront Hamas’s recalcitrance and unilateral inclinations.” Hamada Fara’neh, Amman daily al-Dustour, February 26, 2021.
July 14, 2019 — Fathi Hammad, “There are Jews everywhere. We must attack every Jew on planet Earth! We must slaughter and kill them, with Allah’s help.” Hamas politburo member Fathi Hammad, spoken at a rally on the Israel-Gaza border and quoted by the Gatestone Institute, July 14, 2019.
March 25, 2019 — After a rocket destroys a home in Mishmeret, north of Tel Aviv, Israel strikes military targets in Gaza, and rockets are fired from Gaza into southern Israel. Egyptian diplomatic intervention helps prevent the exchange of fire from escalating into war.
March 30, 2018 — As Israel prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary in May, including the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Hamas begins the Great March of Return, weekly demonstrations aimed at breaking through the fence between Gaza and Israel. Dozens of Palestinians are killed over seven months. Fire kites and balloons are launched into Israel, causing wildfires. After Palestinian Islamic Jihad adds a barrage of 30 rockets in October, Israel launches an airstrike on 80 military targets. Most are Hamas sites because Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rockets fired from the territory it controls.
January 15, 2018 — Hamas-Fatah split is disastrous to the Palestinian Arab cause. The truth is that the PA (as in the past) is making no secret of its overwhelming desire to determine the result of the internal Palestinian debate. … The other side’s (Hamas’s) has displayed a hunger for power. … We, together with millions of Palestinians and their friends, have grown tired of this constant back and forth in foiling national reconciliation. When Fatah agrees, Hamas turns its back; and when the latter agrees, the former turns its back. We have grown tired of this turn-taking in assuming responsibility for obstructing the plans for unity even on the battlefield, and not only in political and institutional terms. We have grown tired of the two parties that share the responsibility for perpetuating and consolidating the split, and of taking turns in shifting responsibility between them, especially since what is under threat of annihilation today is the Palestinian people’s entire national cause. For if Jerusalem, the refugees’ return, and an end to creeping settlement expansion are insufficient cause for ending the disagreement and lining up shoulder-to-shoulder in the confrontation’s arenas and trenches, what can possibly bring these parties together? What will convince them to relinquish their selfishness and narrow factional interests?” ‘Urayb ar-Rintawi in Jordan’s al-Dustour. January 15, 2018.
October 19, 2017 — Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza — “Over is the time Hamas spent discussing recognizing Israel. Now Hamas will discuss when we will wipe out Israel.” Source: October 19, 2017, meeting with Gazan youth about reconciliation with Fatah.https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-chief-we-wont-discuss-recognizing-israel-only-wiping-it-out/
October 12, 2017 — With Egyptian mediation, Hamas and Fatah repeat the effort of 2014 to reconcile and rule over Gaza and the West Bank together. But, again, they quickly break apart.
July 27, 2016 — Arab states see Israel as more important than Palestinian issue: “Talk of the centrality of the Palestinian cause [at the Arab summit in Nouakchott has become a lie that offers no evidence of any truth. The ‘unqualified importance’ that the Arab League’s secretary-general referred to is just an eloquent turn of phrase that bears no relation to reality. As for the Israeli occupation being the main threat to Arab national security, this is nothing more than a joke in two parts: The evidence indicates that this is no longer the case since some Arab states now view Israel as a major ally rather than a primary threat.” Fahmi Houeidi in Egyptian Ashurouq, July 27, 2016.
July 17, 2016 — Arab world looks elsewhere not to Palestinian issue; Palestinians are weak. “The strategic threats posed by the Arab armies, Arab solidarity, and the Palestinian revolution that became an international liberation movement when Palestine was the Arabs’ central cause, have withered away…. remaining threats from Iran, Hizbollah, Hamas, and organizations such ISIS, is diverted away from Israel by other wars and issues. the Palestinians stand alone in the weakest of conditions, with no real and strong allies, after they have abandoned and disregarded their allies across the entire globe, and when, together with their Arab allies, they have focused all their efforts on winning the approval of Washington and Tel Aviv. One hundred years after the Sykes/Picot agreement, the region’s map is being redrawn by dividing up its nations, alongside a serious attempt to liquidate or defer the Palestinian cause under further notice. The Palestinians need to awaken from the illusion that Israel is isolated and under pressure, and realize that only a new approach will foil the ongoing schemes to impose an unfair solution, The Palestinian cause is facing a series of grave threats that could end in its liquidation unless the Palestinians stop living in a state of denial and develop a new approach, argues a leading Palestinian commentator. For Israel is stronger that it has ever been since its establishment, the Arabs are in disarray and are scheming against the cause, and the Palestinians’ regional and international support has mostly been lost to Israel. But the Palestinian cause is not lost and victory can still be won in the long term.” Hani al-Masri, al-Ayyam, July 17, 2016.
July 7, 2016 – Arab state structure falling apart balance of power tilting toward Zionists–“Arab countries are breaking apart and may be partitioned into regional ethnic and sectarian mini-states and entities, totally stripped of their Arab national identity and in conflict among each other. And the Arab order is collapsing with bloody conflicts and wars raging inside many Arab states. Moreover, the balance of power between the Arabs and Israel now tilts in favor of the Zionist entity after the military, security, and economic strategic capabilities of two vital Arab confrontation states, namely, Iraq and Syria, have been destroyed and after the Egyptian army’s hemorrhage in the war on terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula.” Mohammad as-Sa’id Idriss, UAE daily al-Khaleej, July 7, 2016.
December 11, 2014 — Fear that the Palestinian issue is moving into oblivion: “It is no longer any secret that the post-Arab-Spring climate has driven most Arab states to concentrate on their domestic affairs, which has led to a waning interest in pan-Arab concerns in general and the Palestinian problem in particular. Moreover, because of the historic link between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the ongoing clash with the Brotherhood and the declaration of war on them has automatically brought about with a clash with Hamas as well. And because, Hamas, together with other Palestinian factions, is waging its battle with Israel, the Arab capitals that have adopted a hostile stance to the Brotherhood have found themselves standing in the opposite trench to Hamas, one at whose forefront stands Israel as well. This fact, is exactly what the Hebrew state exploited during last summer’s aggression on Gaza when it declared that it was not confronting Hamas alone, but was fighting the battle as part of an undisclosed Arab coalition.” Fahmi Houedi, Egyptian daily Ashurouq, December 11, 2014.
December 11, 2014 — “The Palestinian cause is facing an unprecedented threat. Gaza is on the verge of a total breakdown. Hamas’s collapse in the absence of an all-encompassing national institution and a national alternative that can achieve victory and that enjoys the people’s trust could lead to anarchy, and to the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS and others. As for the Palestinian leadership and the various factions, they seem preoccupied with who leads, who achieves victory, and who can exclude the rest.” Hani al-Masri, al-Ayyam, December 11, 2014.
December 10, 2014 — President Abbas is a dictator, asserts Hani al-Masri in al-Ayyam: “Something very worrisome is afoot, threatening to cause total collapse. For in addition to the absence of a collective national institution, or a political program based on shared denominators, or a single leadership – all resulting from the PLOs paralysis – we have begun to witness a rapid reversal in the steps taken to achieve [Fateh/Hamas] national unity, unless this is contained before it is too late. The author then blistered the Palestinian president for a raft of autocratic actions, laying bare his dictatorship over Palestinian institutions and society. His list included public discussion of a coup to topple Hamas rule in Gaza, orders issued to arrest the PLC Secretary-General, removal of the Director-General of Palestinian TV, Ahmad Zaki, open mutual recriminations between the Palestinian PM and the Presidency who claims that “the cabinet lineup was delivered to him readymade, and that he was asked to accept it as it is because it is a government of national accord, which he did. According to the author of the article, al-Masri, “The president has no right to appoint the government himself. The fact that the government is one of national accord is no excuse for the prime minister’s failure to form it…” the cabinet is the president’s cabinet rather than a national accord government. Hamas … is in the midst of a suffocating crisis,” because its Gaza employees are not being paid.
… Attempts (are) underway to intimidate and suppress opponents, critics, and rivals (of the president) on the eve of the Fateh Conference, … beginning of the struggle over who is to succeed Abu Mazin. …. anyone who criticizes the president and the government’s policy and performance, and who disagrees with the policies adopted on issues of reconciliation with Hamas, the aggression on Gaza, the negotiations with Israel, the political and diplomatic activity, and the manner in which the Fateh Conference is being prepared – well, the charge against them is ready.
“The question here is this: Why is the presidency intervening in all these matters? And what is the role of the government, the judicial system, and Fatah’s Central Committee? Or is this one of the malignant fruits of the inter-Palestinian split, the absenting of the PLC, and the absence of PLO institutions, the PA, and the factions? For now, we seem to have a regime in which one individual rules, one in which the president has widespread powers without being questioned, without supervision, without accountability, without elections, without national accord and partnership, and without anything else. “ Hani al-Masri,al-Ayyam, December 10, 2014.
November 18, 2014 — Two Palestinian cousins kill four rabbis and a Druze police officer who intervenes at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemns the attack, but Hamas praises it without explicitly claiming credit.
October 12, 2014 — More than 50 countries meet to discuss rebuilding Gaza after Operation Protective Edge. Led by $1 billion from Qatar and more than $300 million from the United States for Gaza, the U.N. relief agency and the Palestinian Authority, those countries promise to contribute over $5 billion. But less than 5% of that amount is delivered by April 2015.
July 25, 2014 — Gaza population subjected to bloodshed from Hamas. Former head of Saudi intelligence Turki al-Faisal held Hamas responsible for the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip because of its arrogance. In so many words, he wrote, “the knowledge that the people of Gaza would be subjected to a savage bloodshed and suffering should have put limits to Hamas’s arrogance, but it did not. Moreover, Hamas’s readiness to cause a huge amount of suffering before the inevitable return to a truce or a ceasefire clearly exposes the abyss of unconcern into which it has fallen.” In the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat, July 25 and 27, 2014.
July 8, 2014 — The third and, until October 2023, deadliest fight between Hamas and Israel, Operation Protective Edge, begins with airstrikes and escalates to a ground invasion. The fighting lasts 50 days and kills more than 2,000 Palestinians and 72 Israelis, as well as a Thai worker in Israel.
June 12, 2014 — Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, ages 16 to 19, are abducted while hitchhiking near Alon Shvut in the West Bank. Their Hamas kidnappers kill the teens when they call the police for help. Their bodies are found 18 days later amid rising violence between Israel and Hamas that leads to Operation Protective Edge.
May 5, 2014 — Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas’ politburo: “Hamas will never recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed. We would have spared ourselves seven years of misery under the siege and two wars in 2008 and 2012 had we wanted to recognize Israel. …The al-Qassam Brigades’ weaponry is of national importance to confront the occupation. Hamas’ position in this regard is clear, and it will not allow any tampering with the brigades’ armament, under any circumstances, because it is a strategic asset for all Palestinians. In contrast, the Quartet negotiations require that violence be renounced, which, in effect, means that the al-Qassam weapons must be decommissioned. But this is unacceptable, and Hamas will reject it outright.” Al-Monitor, May 5, 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/originals/2014/05/interview-abu-marzouk-Hamas-israel-fatah-reconciliation.html.
April 23, 2014 — Hamas, Fatah Reconcile — Hamas and the Fatah-led PLO end their seven-year rift, aiming to unite governance of Gaza and the West Bank. But the reconciliation doesn’t last.
December 8, 2012 — Less than three weeks after Pillar of Defense, the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, marks the anniversary of Hamas’ founding by reiterating that the organization will never accept Israel and by calling for its elimination. Israel’s demise remains a core element of Hamas ideology and fervor.
November 28-29, 2012 – Khalid Mishaal, “Palestine, from its river to its sea, from its north to its south, is the land of the Palestinians; their homeland, and their legitimate right. We will not relinquish an inch or any part of it -for any reason or under any circumstances and pressures. We are not fighting the Jewish people merely because they are Jewish. We are, however, fighting those who are Zionist occupiers and aggressors. We will fight anyone who tries to attack us, seize our rights or occupy our land regardless of their religion, affiliations, race or nationality. The Zionist project is a racist, hostile, and expansionist project based on murder and terrorism. Hence, it is the enemy of the Palestinian people and nation and poses a real threat to them, Khalid Mishaal, Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies & Consultations, Beirut, November 28-29, 2012.
November 14, 2012 — An Israeli airstrike kills Hamas’ military chief, Ahmed Jabbari, after a surge in rocket fire from Gaza. The strike starts Israel’s second major military action against Hamas, Operation Pillar of Defense, an air war that lasts eight days. The Iron Dome system, first used in 2011, intercepts 421 rockets during the operation.
December 14, 2011 — Ismail Haniyeh, “The principles [of Hamas] are definitive and non-negotiable: Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, from the River to the Sea. There will be no concession of a single inch of the land of Palestine. The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation – of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem – is not at the expense of our strategic vision with regard to the land of Palestine,” Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh Al-Aqsa Television, December 14, 2011.
August 30, 2011 -“The Palestinians in particular are in an extremely miserable predicament. The vaunted reconciliation between Fateh and Hamas appears unlikely to remedy the split even if it were to be implemented in its entirety; all that the reconciliation deal could achieve is institutionalize quotas and divisions. In fact, most Palestinian factions have turned into lifeless entities, captives of the political tactics of the two dominant movements, which are always prepared to choreograph the motions of those factions to serve their own interests. … For their part, the institutions of civil society were the first victims of the domineering policies pursued by the two major factions, policies that were not designed to contain these institutions but rather to eradicate them altogether and replace them with pliant alternatives. There is a systematic process targeting civil society institutions in Gaza. This process has so far succeeded in eliminating most institutions and is set to continue until Gaza is cleansed of all such institutions, which will be replaced by new ones that will ensure (Hamas’s) total control. …It seems that the ‘Arab Spring’ has strengthened the determination of both Fateh and Hamas to destroy and dismantle all tools of change by eliminating the institutions of civil society including political parties in order to prevent the winds of change from reaching Palestine, which is supposedly the crucible of Arab revolution and change. Taking into account these policies and practices, can we really expect a Palestinian revolution to take place that could bring about change and consolidate resistance in order to confront Israel’s serious challenges?
The Palestinians have always maintained that liberation requires mobilizing the potential of the entire Arab nation. How does this tally with reducing the entire Palestinian people to just the feuding Fateh and Hamas? Frankly, we are not even close to thinking about solving our internal crisis. How then can we hope to exploit Israel’s crises, never mind taking part in exacerbating them?” Talal Awkal, al-Ayyam, August 30, 2011.
April 8, 2011 — Atallah Abu Al-Subh, “The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah.” Hamas former culture minister, Atallah Abu Al-Subh, al-Aqsa Television, April 8, 2011.
June 30, 2010 — “Although Gaza has been the main victim of the Hamas putsch, the entire Palestinian cause has been damaged. Because of the Hamas coup against the newborn Palestinian democratic system, the Palestinian Authority, which has already been facing Israeli pressure to make concessions, has been weakened. Yet the crisis facing democracy and human rights in Gaza is at least as serious as that surrounding the future of the Palestinian cause as a whole….Palestinians are asking what Hamas has achieved out of its putsch of June 2007, and what it has done for the people of Gaza. Since it was formed – exclusively of Hamas members, with no pro-Oslo ministers at all – the Hamas administration of Isma’il Haniyeh has brought nothing but misery and poverty to tens of thousands of PA employees who had sought employment with the authority since 1994 and even before then.” Rajab Abu Siriyyieh, al-Ayyam, June 30, 2010.
April 23, 2010 — U.S. envoy George Mitchell holds “proximity” talks between the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but Hamas rejects any negotiations with Israel.
January 19, 2010 — Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander, is drugged and suffocated in a hotel room in Dubai. The killing is blamed on the Mossad, although no one is caught or takes credit.
January 4, 2010 — For Hamas power is more important than leadership. “Here, we have to direct the following question to Hamas and its leaders: Is power more important to you than the suffering of the Palestinians which you claim to be concerned about? If the Palestinian people are suffering terribly, then relinquishing power in fact, merely returning the PA to the [Gaza] crossing points is a small price to pay. If not, then this means that the [Hamas anti-PA 2007] coup and capturing power is more important to you than that suffering.” al –Ahram, January 4, 2010.
November 25, 2009 — “A few days ago, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abulgheit said that there will be no reconciliation or agreement as long as Hamas fails to realize that it is being used as a card in the current regional polarizations by a non-Arab country namely Iran and as long as it refuses to remove itself from these polarizations and give priority to the Palestinian national interest over its bias towards a party [Iran] for which Palestine is not a prime concern and for whom the Palestinian cause is not theirs. ” Saleh al-Qallab in the Jordanian daily al-Ra’i, November 25, 2009.
November 5, 2009 — Palestinians wait for others to help them out of the predicaments: “This is the problem facing the president and the entire nation. Speaking realistically, the president, the PA, and the PLO cannot find urgent and adequate solutions without serious and real help from our Arab brothers and the effective international parties. The Arab states must adopt a clear position towards the Israeli policy of continued settlements, and towards what is needed to be done against this internationally. They must activate all their available resources and means of pressure to provide effective international pressure on Israel that would force it to stop the settlements immediately and work on ending the occupation and reaching a Palestinian/Israeli and Arab/Israeli peace agreement. The Arab position must also be clear to the U.S. and to the members of the International Quartet. The situation in the region is on the verge of explosion, and this cannot continue forever. As for the domestic Palestinian position, a clear and firm Arab position should be adopted against Hamas’s refusal to sign Egypt’s proposal and its disregard for all the efforts to bring about reconciliation exerted by Egypt over many long months of hard and serious work intended to salvage the Palestinian condition. The Arabs should also declare their support for President Abu Mazin’s measures, aimed at organizing presidential and legislative elections at their specified time [early 2010] if Hamas continues to insist on its position. They must be willing to totally strip Hamas and its institutions of any legitimacy. “Ashraf al-‘Ajrami in Wednesday’s leading Palestinian daily al- Ayyam, November 5, 2009.
June 14, 2009 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with a two-state solution that includes a demilitarized Palestinian state. In this Bar-Ilan speech, he calls on Palestinians to choose the path of peace or the path of Hamas, which repeatedly proclaims a commitment to “liberate” the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Beersheba, Acre and Haifa. He refers to Israel leaving Gaza in 2005: “Territorial withdrawals have not lessened the hatred, and to our regret, Palestinian moderates are not yet ready to say the simple words: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it will stay that way.” Goldstone later admits that his report was slanted against Israel’s actions.
December 27, 2008 — After facing 12,000 rockets fired from Gaza over eight years, including 3,000 in 2008 alone, Israel launches Operation Cast Lead, its first large-scale military operation against Hamas. The 22-day air and land attack aim to eliminate rocket fire, stop terrorism and halt weapons smuggling. On a 14-0 vote with the United States abstaining, the U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 1860 to call for the war to end. The Goldstone Report, issued in 2009 and partially recanted in 2010, accuses both sides of war crimes.
October 22, 2007 — “Hamas is making new enemies with each passing day. The violations and crimes against ordinary citizens and families are a prelude to a sweeping popular rejection of the movement, and to its future accountability. Hamas is burning its bridges and taking the situation to the point of no-return, not only with Fateh and its supporters. In fact, instead of building bridges with the people, it is digging graves for them.” Hafez al-Barghouti, al-Hayat al-Jadidah, October 22, 2007.
June 7, 2007 — Hamas wins a brief but bloody civil war against the Palestinian Authority rule in the Gaza Strip and ousts all Fatah officials. On June 14, President Mahmoud Abbas dismisses the unity government, led by Ismail Haniyeh, and declares a state of emergency.
March 28, 2007 — An Arab summit meeting that reaffirms a commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative is unable to resolve the differences between Hamas and Fatah, resulting in continuing anarchy and violence in Gaza.
September 18, 2006 — Mahmoud al-Zahar. “Hamas rejects this [the Arab Peace Initiative] because it means recognition of Israel.” Mahmoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas, al-Ayyam, September 18, 2006.
June 25, 2006 — Hamas militants enter Israel via a tunnel, disable a patrolling Israeli tank, kill two of its four-man crew, and seize another crew member, Gilad Shalit, and drag him back to Gaza. He is not released until October 18, 2011, when he is exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
June 13, 2006 — Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas’s politburo: “The right to return is an individual right. No representation of the Palestinians, neither the various organizations nor the government nor the president are entitled to relinquish this right. Every refugee must be able to decide on his or her own whether he or she wants to return home. So they would also be able to decide whether they prefer to move to the Palestinian state to be established and being compensated financially? …Do you expect the Palestinians to sell their homeland and their fatherland for money?” Der Spiegel, June 13, 2006.
June 4, 2006 — Arab commentator critical of Hamas because it rejects a two-state solution — “The problem with HAMAS’s political platform is its rejection of the principle of the two states on the historical land of Palestine and the proposal of the principle of a long-term truce if Israel withdraws to the lines that existed prior to the June (1967) war. Consequently, HAMAS is openly announcing to the world that the Israeli withdrawal, if it takes place, does not constitute an end to the conflict but rather postponing it. This position cannot be accepted internationally, and certainly Israel cannot accept it. On the contrary, this position gives the international community the justifications to turn its back to us and gives Israel enough pretexts to refuse withdrawal and continue its attacks and unilateral solutions. HAMAS’s political platform is political suicide and cannot constitute the basis for any political agreement among all the national work factions.” Muhammad Yaghi, “The Dispute Over the Two-State Principle Will be Settled by a Referendum,” Al-Ayyam, June 4, 2006.
April 20, 2006— Dr. Ahmad Salih, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s political adviser, on corruption in the PA: “Acts of systematic looting [by Arafat’s regime] have led to a high deficit in the Palestinian economy and have entangled the PA in debts amounting to about $2 billion at a time when the money coming to the PA from abroad covered all the requirements needed for current expenses or the construction and development of infrastructure installations or building a strong national economy.” Salih added that the Hamas government “has inherited a heavy burden as a result of the rampant corruption.” al-Ayyam, April 20, 2006.
March 8, 2006 “ [Palestinian PM designate] Hamas Haniyeh’s vision of pluralism is simple: it will be permitted within the confines of Hamas’ program. In other words, participation by other political forces will not be allowed to dilute Hamas’ program. Haniyeh was adamant that Hamas was perfectly capable – and determined – to form the next government— Rajab Abu Siriyyieh, in al-Ayyam, March 8, 2006.
January 25, 2006 — Hamas wins the second elections held for the Palestinian Legislative Council with more than 44% of the votes, good for 76 of the 132 seats; the PLO’s Fatah is second with 43 seats. Hamas was not part of the previous legislative council. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh becomes the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister in late March; a Fatah-Hamas unity government replaces his government a year later. This was a year after the death of longtime PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat. Before his death, Hamas had been in open competition for the hearts, minds and leadership of the Palestinian Arab National Movement.
January 4, 2006 — Ehud Olmert becomes acting prime minister after Ariel Sharon, the architect of the Gaza disengagement, slips into a coma from which he never recovers. Olmert refuses to negotiate with Hamas unless it rejects terrorism.
August 15, 2005 — The Israeli military begins Israel’s complete unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, including forcing Israelis to abandon their homes to be resettled in Israel proper. Israel moves more than 9,000 Israelis out of the Gaza Strip, turning it over to the Palestinian Authority to govern.
March 20, 2005 — “If Hamas enters the government, it is ready to accept a long-term truce and keep the conflict open. The issue does not necessarily have to be settled by this generation. There are countries that remained under occupation for long years. Therefore, if our generation cannot act, it must not make concessions.” Mahmoud al-Zahhar, co-founder of Hamas, al-Jezirah satellite television, March 20, 2005.
June 10, 2003 — Abdel Aziz Rantisi, “By God, we will not leave one Jew in Palestine. We will fight them with all the strength we have. This is our land, not the Jews’ [land].” Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi, June 10, 2003, al-Jazeera
March 31, 2002 — Hamas leader, a truce with Israel is ok, but we will take it all Hamas spiritual leader and Shakyh Ahmed Yasin 1998 “Neither Tenet nor Mitchell (two US Middle East negotiators) can solve the Palestinian issue. They are just sedatives because only the liberation of the land and the Palestinian people’s return to their homeland and holy places can solve our issue. We will not lay down arms and no authority or people can hand over their weapons before liberation. We say liberation first and then disarmament. Anything else comes under the US-Israeli plot to isolate the Palestinians and impose the defective solutions on them. And this is something we absolutely refuse to accept. We declare very clearly that Palestine from AlNaqurah to Rafah and from [river] Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea is the land of Palestine. There is no harm in establishing a Palestinian state on any part that is liberated at this stage, but without this meaning conceding the remaining territories of Palestine. This is the difference between the brothers in the PA and us.” alMajallah (London) March 31, 2002.
October 3, 2001 — The U.S. government freezes the assets of Hamas in the United States, and the European Union does the same in Europe, in a push for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution. The U.S. Treasury freezes the accounts of Hamas-connected organizations in 2003 and 2006.
April 17, 2001 — Jihad and resistance are the only means to wrest Palestine from Israel. Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas’s politburo: “The option of resistance and Jihad [struggle] is the only one that will force the Zionists to leave. The relationship with the enemy should not be one of negotiation or cooperation, but one of confrontation and resistance. We base our strategy on the following principles: (1) The option of resistance and Jihad [struggle] is the only one that will force the Zionists to leave. (2) The relationship with the enemy should not be one of negotiation or cooperation, but one of confrontation and resistance. (3) Ties between the Palestinian cause and its Arab and Moslem extensions must be strengthened, since the Palestinian cause does not only concern the Palestinian people. The struggle against Israel is a clash between two civilizations for which the Arab nation must mobilize all its potential. As far as we in Hamas are concerned, we have never declared that we intend to stop our armed struggle against the occupation, negotiations, or no negotiations.” Excerpts of Interview with Ismail Haniyeh, who was then the secretary to Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, Falastin al-Muslimah, April 17, 2001.
September 28, 2000-February 8, 2005 — Hamas takes a leading role in suicide attacks during the Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising against Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip). The attacks for which Hamas claims credit include three Jerusalem attacks and a Haifa bus bombing in 12 hours in December 2001, a Passover seder bombing in Netanya in March 2002, a Haifa restaurant bombing in March 2002, a bus bombing outside Haifa in April 2002, a pool hall bombing in Rishon LeZion in May 2002, a bus bombing in a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood in August 2003, and bombs in two Beersheba buses in August 2004. More than 1,000 Israelis are killed in these 4½ years by Hamas and other Palestinian organizations.
April 24, 1997 — Hamas leader: “They [the PA] openly say that their objective is to relinquish around 90 percent of the land of Palestine. ‘Shall I give them a chance to achieve it?” he asked. “Islam does not permit giving up one inch of Palestine and states that Palestine belongs to the Moslems, belongs to the Palestinian people, not to the Jews,” Rantisi said in al-Hayat, 22 April 1997. “This is the Islamic position, which says that if one inch of the Moslems’ land is occupied, they must liberate it. Does Islam allow me to go along with the conspiracy against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause and call this peace and coexist with it? I firmly believe that Islam does not allow this. When they speak of Oslo, they speak of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with [East] Jerusalem as its capital while giving up the rest of Palestine. Oslo boils down to relinquishing Palestine, plus wishes which they call ‘a Palestinian state’.” Rantisi made similar remarks to al-Quds al-Arabi, adding: “My position is that I agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state on any [liberated] part of Palestine, but without giving up any part in exchange. This is liberation. But bartering land for land to which I am entitled is not liberation and is not permissible in Islam.” Hamas leader Abd al-Azziz Rantisi; taken from Daily Report, FBIS-NESA, April 24, 1997.
April 22, 1997 — Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, “Islam does not permit giving up one inch of Palestine and states that Palestine belongs to the Muslims, belongs to the Palestinian people, not to the Jews,” Abd al-Azziz Rantisi, co-founder of Hamas, al-Hayat, April 22, 1997.
March 4, 1996 — A Hamas member detonates a bomb packed with nails outside Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center, which is crowded with costumed children on the eve of Purim. The bombing is the fourth in nine days, combining to kill more than 60 Israelis.
January 5, 1996 — Shin Bet assassinates Hamas bomb maker Yahya Ayyash, known as “The Engineer,” by detonating explosives hidden in his cellphone in Gaza City.
November 1, 1995 — Days before his assassination, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin tells an interviewer that he endorsed the Oslo Accords largely because of his belief that strengthening the secular PLO would weaken the Islamist Hamas.
November 21, 1994 — Abdalllah al-Shami, “The state of Israel has no right to exist over the land of Palestine. Recognizing the legitimacy of Israel is a disavowal of our people’s right. We have been against the legitimacy of the occupation from the beginning. The entire land is owned by our people. We do not mind if the Jews want to live on our land. However, we will not agree whatsoever to live under their flag and under their control.” Abdallah al-Shami, official Hamas spokesman, Al-Muharrir (Paris), November 21, 1994.
October 9, 1994 — Hamas terrorists kidnap Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman, an American citizen, at Bnai Atarot in central Israel. Hamas demands the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners within five days. Wachsman is killed in an Israeli rescue attempt, as is the head of the rescue team.
September 19, 1994 – Hamas condemns Arafat– – Arafat has given it all away —“Arafat cannot let the ill-fated Oslo Agreement’s anniversary pass without furnishing fresh evidence of his breaking ranks with our Palestinian people to join our criminal Zionist enemy’s camp at the expense of their rights and aspirations. On the first annual anniversary of the demeaning 13 September 1993 Oslo Accord, the second signing marks a new link in the chain of concessions and capitulation that builds on the giveaways yielded to the enemy in Oslo, Washington, Paris, and Cairo. These giveaways are used by the enemy as a cover for its repressive practices and coercive measures against our defenseless people and to promote its settlements and Judaization of our stolen Palestinian land and blessed sanctities. Our guileful enemy … persists in humiliating the flimsy Arafat authority and robbing it of the basic trappings of sovereignty so Arafat and his authority may remain a cheap tool to advance the Zionist objective of controlling the Arab region. …
“Further, the Oslo Accord leaves Jerusalem out of even international assistance. It also fails even to refer to Israel’s settlement drive, ongoing Judaization, and the demographic and physical changes affecting Jerusalem’s Arab and Islamic identity. Arafat is confirming his insistence on pursuing the path of surrender and disregard for our people’s wishes and their categorical rejection of all concessions.
“Hamas condemns the signing of the Oslo Declaration and reiterates its rejection of all the homeland-selling agreements signed with the occupying enemy. None of these agreements has any binding force on our Palestinian people or represents them in any way.” Hamas publication, al-Majd (Amman), September 19, 1994.
September 9, 1993 — PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin mutually recognize each other. Arafat’s primary objective, according to Arab sources, was his fear that he was losing control over the PLO. He sensed that recognition of the PLO by Israel would foster international legitimacy to his continuing rule, which it did until his death in 2005. Hamas adopts the view that Arafat’s recognition of Israel is an act of unforgiveable treason; Hamas leaders repeatedly engage in scathing condemnation of the PLO.
December 1992 — After Palestinian terrorists killed six Israelis in the West Bank early in the month and Hamas kidnapped and killed another Israeli in midmonth, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin deports 400 Palestinians to southern Lebanon, among them two well-known Hamas leaders, Abdel Aziz Rantisi and Mahmud Zahar. Both will return to Gaza and continue leadership roles in Hamas for more than a decade.
October 31, 1992 — Ibrahim Ghawshah, head of Hamas in Gaza: “There is a dangerous plot under way that threatens the entire region; that is, the plot to have the Arab, Islamic fold accept the Zionists. If, God forbid, this materializes and Arab-Israeli relations improve, as we mentioned earlier, it would engulf all aspects including the political, cultural and social spheres. In this way. Israel would be able to attain its strategic objectives of a Greater Israel without fighting. True peace can only be attained by returning the Palestinians to their homeland and returning the Zionist aggressors to the countries from where [they came].
August 18, 1988 — Hamas declares in its charter its unyielding determination to use jihad to replace Israel with Palestine.
December 10-14, 1987 — Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is founded in the Gaza Strip as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.