In its bloody assault on Israel, Hamas was aiming to break a stalemate in Gaza, analysts say, but with its neighbor now determined to eradicate the Islamist group, it may have made a fatal mistake.
Watch more News on iWantTFC Responsible for governing the coastal enclave since its violent takeover in 2007, Hamas had come under pressure from the Palestinian public for the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, said George Giacaman, a professor at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank.
By the 1990s, Hamas, Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, had become the spearhead of the armed struggle against Israel, with Yasser Arafat's PLO turning away from violence and towards the peace process. Hamas has a separate armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which is led by the elusive Mohammed Deif, Israel's public enemy number one and a man they have tried to assassinate on multiple occasions.
In 2018, Hamas and Israel agreed a long-term truce intended to stabilise the Gaza Strip, beset by poverty and unemployment, following mediation by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations. However, political instability in Israel -- which has held five elections in three and half years and since late last year has been governed by a coalition including far-right parties wholly opposed to any concessions to the Palestinians -- destabilised that arrangement.
Watch more News on iWantTFC "Hamas regarded what is happening at Al-Aqsa, a symbol of both religious and national significance for Palestinians that should never be underestimated, as an opportunity to launch its attack," he said.
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