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What is Hamas, how it rose to power & its role in Israel-Palestine conflict?.

Over the past few days of escalating conflict between Israel and Palestine, Hamas, a militant organisation, has come to the limelight once again. They claim to have launched several rocket attacks on Israel as retaliation for incidents in East Jerusalem and offensive action from Israeli Defence Forces. Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or Hamas for short, is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic militant organisation with a significant presence in the Gaza strip to the west of Israel. The organisation has two wings -- Dawah, the social service wing, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the military wing.

When Hamas, an Arabic word for ‘zeal’, emerged from ‘Islamic Compound’

It was in June 1989 that Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin, born in 1938 in Ashkelon — then known as Al Majdel — first admitted that he was the ‘Father’ of the Hamas movement after he and his son were tortured by Israeli soldiers during an interrogation in prison, according to Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement, written by Palestinian journalist Zaki Chehab. Chehab, who had gained significant access to some of the key players in Hamas, also wrote how despite being a quadriplegic, Yassin rose to become the militant group’s spiritual leader from being an ordinary Arabic language elementary school teacher, whom the Palestinians greatly admired. The journey started in 1978, when Yassin established an organisation with massive followers, which came to be known as ‘Islamic Compound’. He also garnered support and collaborated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups across Gaza, Hebron, Nablus and Jerusalem. As strife between Israel and Palestine continued to soar as the latter resorted to the First Intifada, or uprising, in December 1987, Hamas as an organisation led by Sunni-Islamic fundamentalists, began to take shape.

Yassin, now an undisputed leader of the Palestinian cause collaborated with others like Sheikh Salah Shehada from Islamic University in Gaza, Issa Al Nasshaar, an engineer from Rafiah and Abdul Fattah Dokhan, a headmaster among others to create Hamas. Their call was “Right! Force! Freedom”, wrote Chehab.

Back then Hamas could gain immediate and immense popularity within the protesting Palestinians because it was able to fill the political space left by Yaseer Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which “moved towards the path of a diplomatic settlement”, journalist Anton La Guardia wrote in his book, Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians.
In 1987, riots and protests broke out against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and pockets within Israel in what is known as the First Intifada. The Hamas back then was in its nascent stages as a breakaway faction of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The co-founder of the organisation, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, revealed that Hamas aimed to 'liberate Palestine' from Israeli occupation from the geographical area, including Israel, West Bank and the Gaza strip. Hamas has since varied on finer details of its stance, including accepting a truce if Israel followed certain conditions. Israel and Hamas have been at loggerheads ever since the inception of the organisation. Hamas has attacked Israeli civilians using homemade and short-range rockets, mortar shelling and other arms. Often, these attacks have been termed retaliatory for Israeli actions against the leadership of Hamas and making fresh settlements in Palestinian territory. Both actors have fought three wars since Hamas took over control of Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. An informal truce came about after regional powers and international actors influenced both entities. Hamas won majority seats in the Palestinian Parliament in 2006 and the government since, leading to cutting off of financial assistance from the UN, US, Russia and European Union after Hamas rejected conditions of non-violence and recognition of Israel as a State. Foreign support for Hamas is fragmented as some countries including Iran, Syria, Qatar and Turkey are known to be supportive, whilst the US, EU and Japan label them as terrorist organisation. New Zealand, UK and Australia are among the countries that only list the military wing as a terrorist organisation. In the recent flare-up between Israel and Palestine, Hamas has launched several rocket attacks in which at least two Israelis have died, whilst Israel’s attacks have killed over 35 Gazans. This is mainly attributed to the homemade nature of Hamas’s rockets, making it less effective, and Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system that repels rocket attacks. Hamas has called for an intifada, or uprising, on the lines of the protests and riots of yesteryears with unrest spreading from Jerusalem to Gaza, most parts of the West Bank and Arab cities in Israel. One of the triggers for the latest eruption is the threat of eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers for over a month in Jerusalem. This led to protests and clashes with the police. The al-Aqsa mosque, which is considered a holy site sacred for Muslims and Jews, has been the focal point of the recent escalation.






POSTED ON 19-05-2021 BY ADMIN
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