Michael Jacobs, Ken Stein, and Scott Abramson, April 24, 2025
These entries cover the 2023 Hamas-Israel war, the Hamas-Israel relationship from 1988 forwards, including dozens of Hamas statements about destroying Israel. 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 provide a full-throated embrace of Hamas as a legitimate political organization for negotiations with Israel. Other notable politicians and analysts also sought to legitimize Hamas as a political partner for Israel without considering the organizations intention to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’ Their collective motivation stemmed from a deep yearning to see a process of Palestinians-Israeli negotiations unfold, without concern for the organization’s anti-Jewish ideology!
The entries assembled cover the last quarter-century; some are from Arabic 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, particularly Iran. The timeline might be best used along with an annotated bibliography of Hamas, updated monthly. This bibliography is particularly useful for anyone interested in developing context and perspective.
The high points in Hamas’ history are its founding in 1987-1988, its victory in legislative elections in 2006, its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and its five wars with Israel, including the one that began with the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, produced an Israeli response that has killed an estimated 18,000 Hamas terrorists and operatives and its top leaders (Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024 and Yahya Sinwar in October 2024), and led to the implementation of the first stage of a January 2025 cease-fire agreement with exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded in the Gaza Strip in December 1987. In August 1988, Hamas 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, advocated Islamic-based government, and rejected 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 ingested 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 2007, Hamas launched a successful coup against the Palestinian Authority, which was ruling the Gaza Strip after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 to test Palestinian intentions in self-rule. Hamas eventually evolved complete 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 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 its rule. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and abducting more than 250. It became the flash point for Israel’s longest war, which has cost Israel several thousand dead and injured.
The Hamas induced war in Gaza resulted in the displacement and killing of thousands of Palestinians as they fled from Israel’s retaliation for the October 7, 2023, attack. Deaths to Palestinians, including Hamas operatives, have been estimated to be at least 40,000, with millions displaced from their homes. Though initiated by Hamas and joined by Hezbollah, the war evolved into military clashes between Israel and Iran. Each country found the other’s policies and political leaders to be its No. 1 physical and ideological enemies.
March 21, 2025 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet votes unanimously to dismiss Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, citing a “loss of trust.” While the government insists that Bar was fired for his agency’s failure to forestall the October 7 attack, the opposition claims that the dismissal was politically motivated, a bid to sabotage the Shin Bet’s investigation into “Qatargate.” The Israeli Supreme Court issues an injunction freezing Bar’s dismissal.
March 18, 2025 — Just one day shy of the two-month mark, the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas breaks down. Israel renews airstrikes after Hamas refuses either to release additional hostages or to extend the first phase of the agreement.
February 27, 2025 — The IDF releases the findings of its first internal probe into the military failures of October 7. The preliminary inquiry is a fact-finding probe only, the product of a months-long effort by various branches of the IDF (the Southern Command, Operations Division, Israeli Air Force and Israeli Navy) to understand what went wrong on Black Saturday.
February 12, 2025 — By the terms of the January 2025 cease-fire agreement, Hamas has released 33 hostages, including one American and five Thai nationals, while Israel has freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons for various reasons. Qatar, Egypt and the United States are regularly engaged in sustaining the agreement.
February 10, 2025 — Israel’s Channel 12 breaks a national scandal later dubbed “Qatargate.” The controversy centers on allegations that several of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisers were paid, directly or through intermediaries, by Qatar to mount an image-laundering campaign on Doha’s behalf. Under orders from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara some two weeks later, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police open an investigation leading to the arrest of two senior advisers to the prime minister.
February 4, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump proposes relocating Gaza’s 2 million-plus Palestinians to other countries and transforming Gaza into the “Rivera of the Middle East” under U.S. ownership and control. Izzat al-Risheq, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau, labels Trump’s statements about the proposal as racist and a clear attempt to eliminate the Palestinian issue. Al-Risheq emphasizes that Palestinians are deeply rooted in their land and will not accept any plan to uproot them. Sami Abu Zuhri, another senior Hamas official, warns that such statements are a “recipe for chaos and regional tensions,” asserting that Gaza’s residents will not allow any such plan to be implemented. Other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, reject Trump’s proposal out of hand. The Israeli reaction to the Trump idea for Gaza’s future is mixed, depending on current political outlooks and party identities.
January 30, 2025 — Israel officially ceases cooperation with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees under legislation passed by the Israeli parliament October 28, 2024. The Israeli government cites anger at UNRWA staff for being centrally affiliated with Hamas and the attack of October 7, 2023.
January 19, 2025 — In the first exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners under a new cease-fire agreement, three Israeli women return to Israel, and 90 Palestinian security prisoners are taken to the West Bank town of Betunia. Both sides celebrate the return of those held. But several Israeli government officials condemn the cease-fire deal and exchange, while others insist that nothing stands in the path of the return of the remaining 94 hostages, dead or alive, held by Hamas. The exchange fulfills the early part of the three phases of the cease-fire agreement, scheduled to last 33 days. Enormous skepticism exists in Israel that the agreement will be fully implemented, whereby Hamas will release all the hostages and the Hamas-Israel cease-fire will continue indefinitely. The cease-fire terms include a large expansion of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
October 26, 2024 — In a proportional response to Iran’s Oct. 1 missile attack, in a pre-dawn attack the Israeli Air Force dispatches more than 100 aircraft to Iran, striking multiple military facilities. Targets include military bases, air defense systems, missile production facilities and factories used to produce fuel for Iran’s long-distance missiles. The attack leaves the Iranian regime with virtually no air defenses against another Israeli attack, should it come. The Israelis do not target Iran’s oil facilities or its nuclear weapons production capabilities. The U.S. government responds by warning Iran not to respond to this Israeli action. Israel’s attack comes 10 days before the U.S. presidential election, with little comment from either major candidate. For Israel, it is 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 advocates 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 Hodeida in western Yemen. Israel 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 Hodeida, 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 troops rescue four Israeli hostages held by Hamas; 120 hostages remain unaccounted for, others having died in captivity. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since the war began. More than 300 Israeli soldiers have been killed, and 3,000 others have been seriously injured.
May 31, 2024 — President Joe Biden announces that “Israel has now offered a comprehensive new proposal for an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages transmitted by Qatar to Hamas.” It contains three phases. He volunteers the United States 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 United Nations made a similar claim that both Hamas and Israel had engaged in war crimes against each other.
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 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’ last major stronghold, where the terrorist group’s last four intact 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’ supply lines run. In the weeks after its takeover of the Rafah Crossing, Israel unearths 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 is 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 Mohammad Reza 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 multilayered defense system or shot down by Israel, Jordan, France, Britain and the United States. What’s more, by repulsing the Iranian attack, Israel restores a measure of the deterrence it lost October 7, demonstrates its technological superiority with an impressive display of its defensive capabilities, and proves, 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 targets, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, is 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 a reportedly 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 United States follows the lead of other countries (the United Kingdom and France among them) that have made airdrops to Gaza.
February 23, 2024 — Prime Minister Benjamin 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 “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 United States 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. relief agency for Palestinian refugees) are identified as having participated in the October 7 massacre, while several thousand 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 than on any other day since the start of Operation Swords of Iron.
January 2, 2024 — In a crushing blow to the terrorist organization, Israel assassinates Hamas’ most senior official based in Lebanon, Saleh al-Arouri. He was the deputy chairman of Hamas’ politburo, but his responsibilities were hardly limited to political affairs. He was also Hamas’ 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’ armed wing, was in charge of Hamas’ 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 ax to the central plank of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political platform: limiting the power of the Israeli judiciary. In an 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 a 12-3 majority, 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, de-escalating 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’ military wing), Khan Yunis is the home territory of Hamas’ best fighting force, the Khan Yunis Brigade.
December 1, 2023 — Before the cease-fire ends, Hamas fires rockets into Israel and reneges on its commitment to release 15 additional children and two women. With 137 Israelis still held hostage and after a weeklong cease-fire, 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 — After weeks of mediation by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, Hamas and Israel agree to a prisoner-for-hostage exchange and a four-day cease-fire. During the cease-fire, which begins on November 24, Hamas releases 50 Israeli hostages from almost two months of captivity, and Israel releases 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. Israel proposes to extend the cease-fire for each 10 additional captives released by Hamas. The cease-fire 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 cease-fire is thus prolonged to one week, during which 240 Palestinians are released from Israeli prisons and 81 Israelis from Hamas’ captivity.
November 15, 2023 — The Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility, Shifa Hospital, under which Hamas’ 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’ company and battalion commanders.
November 14, 2023 — A national March for Israel brings 300,000 American Jews to the National Mall in Washington to register their solidarity with the Jewish state and their demand for the release of the hostages. It is 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’ operational command.
October 24, 2023 — “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, Lebanese Broadcast Corp.
October 18, 2023 — In the first wartime visit of a sitting American president to the Jewish state, Joe Biden arrives in Israel in a show of solidarity. 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. Biden had days after the Hamas attack declared Washington’s total commitment to Israel’s security, and characterized Hamas’s assault as “evil.”
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 found on a terrorist’s corpse. With this barbarous objective in view, Hamas slaughters, without distinction, every living creature 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 251 in captivity in Gaza. Hamas’ 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 — “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.” Yahya Sinwar, as reported by MEMRI.
April 2021 — Elections are not the answer to the schism in the Palestinian Arab National Movement. “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.
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 multistage 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’ recalcitrance and unilateral inclinations.” Hamada Fara’neh in the Amman daily al-Dustour.
September 2020 – Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE sign recognition agreements in the Abraham Accords with Israel, brokered by US President Trump. The PA and the PLO consider the agreement an abandonment of the Palestinian cause for the liberation of occupied territories. Hamas political leaders state, “Normalization with the Occupation is a Betrayal” and “a treacherous stab in the back of the Palestinians.”
July 14, 2019 — “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 at a rally on the Israel-Gaza border, quoted by the Gatestone Institute.
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 — The 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 [Hamas] 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.
October 19, 2017 — Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza, says during a meeting with Gazan youth about reconciliation with Fatah, “Over is the time Hamas spent discussing recognizing Israel. Now Hamas will discuss when we will wipe out Israel.” The Times of Israel.
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 — “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 Egypt’s Ashurouq.
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, Hezbollah, Hamas and organizations such as ISIS are 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. 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 7, 2016 — “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.
December 11, 2014 — “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 — “The Palestinian cause is facing an unprecedented threat. Gaza is on the verge of a total breakdown. Hamas’ 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 10, 2014 — President Mahmoud Abbas is a dictator: “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,” Hani al-Masri writes. His list includes 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 prime minister and the president, who claims that “the Cabinet lineup was delivered to him ready-made, and that he was asked to accept it as it is because it is a government of national accord, which he did.” Al-Masri adds, “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 Fatah conference, … beginning the struggle over who is to succeed Abu Mazen. … 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 Fatah 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.” Al-Ayyam.
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 percent of that amount is delivered by April 2015.
July 25, 2014 — Former head of Saudi intelligence Turki al-Faisal holds Hamas responsible for the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip because of its arrogance. He writes, “The knowledge that the people of Gaza would be subjected to a savage bloodshed and suffering should have put limits to Hamas’ arrogance, but it did not. Moreover, Hamas’ readiness to cause a huge amount of suffering before the inevitable return to a truce or a cease-fire clearly exposes the abyss of unconcern into which it has fallen.” Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat.
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.
April 23, 2014 — Hamas and the Fatah-led PLO seek to 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 Mashaal, 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 — “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,” Khaled Mashaal, Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies & Consultations, Beirut.
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 — “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.
August 30, 2011 — “The Palestinians in particular are in an extremely miserable predicament. The vaunted reconciliation between Fatah 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’] total control. … It seems that the ‘Arab Spring’ has strengthened the determination of both Fatah 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 Fatah 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.
April 8, 2011 — “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.
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 Ismail 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.
April 23, 2010 — U.S. envoy George Mitchell holds “proximity” talks between the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and he has contacts with Hamas. Mitchell’s Report is issued where it notes that “death and destruction will not bring peace but will deepen the hatred and harden the resolve on both sides. There is only one way to bring peace, justice and security in the Middle East, and that is through negotiation.” 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 2007] coup and capturing power is more important to you than that suffering.” al–Ahram.
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 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 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’ 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 Mazen’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 leading Palestinian daily al-Ayyam.
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 important 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.”
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 ratifies Resolution 1860 calling 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.
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 — “Hamas rejects this [the Arab Peace Initiative] because it means recognition of Israel.” Mahmoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas, Al-Ayyam.
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, the chairman of Hamas’ 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 4, 2006 — “The problem with Hamas’ 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’ political platform is political suicide and cannot constitute the basis for any political agreement among all the national work factions.” Arab commentator Muhammad Yaghi, “The Dispute Over the Two-State Principle Will be Settled by a Referendum,” Al-Ayyam.
April 20, 2006 — Dr. Ahmad Salih, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s political adviser, on corruption in the PA: “Acts of systematic looting [by Yasser 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 adds that the Hamas government “has inherited a heavy burden as a result of the rampant corruption.” Al-Ayyam.
March 8, 2006 — Prime Minister-designate Ismail “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.
January 25, 2006 — Hamas wins the second elections held for the Palestinian Legislative Council with more than 44 percent 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 Yasser 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,” says Mahmoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas, al-Jezirah satellite television.
June 10, 2003 — Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi says, “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’.” Interview with al-Jazeera.
March 31, 2002 — Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yasin says a truce with Israel is OK, but Hamas eventually will take it all. “Neither [George] Tenet nor [George] Mitchell [two U.S. 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 U.S.-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.” Interview in alMajallah, London.
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, says Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas’ 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 Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi tells al-Quds al-Arabi: “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.” Taken from Daily Report, FBIS-NESA.
April 22, 1997 — PA leaders “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? 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,” Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi says in al-Hayat. “This is the Islamic position, which says that if one inch of the Muslims’ 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.’”
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 growing popularity of Islamist Hamas. Rabin takes the view that Israel would be far better to make an agreement with a secular Palestinian movementm than one that might have the backing of one billion Muslims!
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.
“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 — Signed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the PLO and Israel exchange letters of mutual recognition,. Arafat’s primary objective, according to Arab sources, is his fear that he is losing control over the PLO. He senses that recognition of the PLO by Israel will foster international legitimacy to his continuing rule, which it does 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. Hamas vehemently opposes PLO signing of a diplomatic agreement with with Israel, further recognizing Israel’s legtitimacy, in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
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 al-Rantisi and Mahmoud al-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 publishes in its charter, defining its unyielding determination to use “jihad” to destroy Israel.
December 10-14, 1987 — Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is officially founded in the Gaza Strip as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Eventually to be Hamas’s founding leader, Shakyh Ahmed Yassin, particularly after the signing of the March 1979, Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, had begun avidely preaching in Gaza his opposition to any Arab or Muslim leader or country accepting or recognizing Israel as a legitimate entity.
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