Per Hamas officials, he was elected due to his considerable popularity in the Arab and Islamic worlds following the 7 October attacks and his strong connections with Iran and the "Axis of Resistance," an informal Iranian-led political and military coalition.

[44] The founder of Hamas, sheikh Ahmed Yassin, has offered Israel a ten-year hudna, Arabic word for armistice, in return for complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories captured in the 1967 war and establishing a Palestinian state in West Bank and Gaza.

6, 11 [137] Practically speaking, Hamas is and was at war with Israel's army (later also attacking Israeli civilians) since the spring of 1989, initially as part of the First Intifada, a general protest movement that gradually turned more riotous and violent.

Leila Seurat also notes that this document "implicitly recognized the June 1967 borders, agreed on the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as a capital and accepted limitations to the resistance in the territories occupied in 1967", and was produced following consultations with the entire Political Bureau.

[88] In 2009, Taghreed El-khodary and Ethan Bronner, writing in the New York Times, said that Hamas' position is that it doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist, but is willing to accept as a compromise a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.

Their role was defined primarily as one of manufacturing males and caring for their upbringing and rearing, though the charter recognized they could fight for liberation without obtaining their husband's permission and in 2002 their participation in jihad was permitted.

[191] The doctrinal emphasis on childbearing and rearing as woman's primary duty is not so different from Fatah's view of women in the First Intifada and it also resembles the outlook of Jewish settlers, and over time it has been subjected to change.

[citation needed] Polygamy is practised in some Bedouin communities in Israel, and some Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, particularly in the Negev desert (Arabic pronunciation: Naqab) surrounding the Gaza Strip.

The foremost members to distance Hamas from the practices of the Taliban and to publicly support the Erdoğan model were Ahmed Yousef and Ghazi Hamad, advisers to Prime Minister Hanieh.

[224][225] Article 6 states that the movement's aim is to "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned".

[51] Hroub, though not responding directly, disagrees, writing that the 2017 document shows that Hamas is stressing the nationalist/resistance aspects of its purpose, providing a "clear assertion of the right to a national liberation struggle on the basis of international law.

[243] It has had a holding company in East Jerusalem (Beit al-Mal), a 20% stake in Al Aqsa International Bank which served as its financial arm, the Sunuqrut Global Group and al-Ajouli money-changing firm.

Much of the money raised comes from sources that direct their assistance to what Hamas describes as its charitable work for Palestinians, but investments in support of its ideological position are also relevant, with Persian Gulf States and Saudi Arabia prominent in the latter.

[250][251] Saudi funding, negotiated with third parties including Egypt, remained supportive of Hamas as a Sunni group but chose to provide more assistance to the PNA, the electoral loser, when the EU responded to the outcome by suspending its monetary aid.

"[259] According to U.S. officials, as of 2023 Hamas has an investment portfolio that is worth anywhere from 500 million to US$1 billion, including assets in Sudan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.

[262] Also in 2024, the European Council added six people to its sanctions list for helping fund Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including a senior official from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

[268] Part of the appeal of these institutions is that they fill a vacuum in the administration by the PLO of the Palestinian territories, which had failed to cater to the demand for jobs and broad social services, and is widely viewed as corrupt.

[269] As late as 2005, the budget of Hamas, drawing on global charity contributions, was mostly tied up in covering running expenses for its social programmes, which extended from the supply of housing, food and water for the needy to more general functions such as financial aid, medical assistance, educational development and religious instruction.

[276] After the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état deposed the elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Hamas found itself in a financial straitjacket and has since endeavoured to throw the burden of responsibility for public works infrastructure in the Gaza Strip back onto the Palestinian National Authority, but without success.

Before the conflict with Israel, the unit reportedly had a monthly budget of $120,000 and consisted of 856 personnel, including more than 160 individuals paid to spread Hamas propaganda and conduct online attacks against opponents.

[357] According to one report, commenting on the 2014 conflict, "nearly all the 2,500–3,000 rockets and mortars Hamas has fired at Israel since the start of the war seem to have been aimed at towns", including an attack on "a kibbutz collective farm close to the Gaza border", in which an Israeli child was killed.

[378][379] NGOs have cited a number of summary executions as particular examples of violations of the rules of warfare, including the case of Muhammad Swairki, 28, a cook for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, who was thrown to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City.

Later that day, more than a dozen armed men with black masks and red kaffiyeh took the man from his home, and brought him to a solitary area where they shot him three times in the lower legs and ankles.

"[405] Tobias Buck, a journalist with the British Financial Times newspaper wrote in 2012 that Hamas is "listed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, but few dare to treat it that way" and in the Arab and Muslim world it had lost its pariah status with its emissaries welcomed in capitals of Islamic countries.

[413][414][415][416] This policy was part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution by confining the Palestinian Authority to the West Bank and weakening it, and to demonstrate to the Israeli public and western governments that Israel has no partner for peace.

In April 2006, Mahmoud al-Zahar (then foreign minister) visited Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt.

In 2017, Yahya Sinwar visited Cairo for 5 weeks and convinced the Egyptian government to open the Rafah crossing, letting in cement and fuel in exchange for Hamas committing to better relations with Fatah; this subsequently led to the signing of the 2017 Fatah–Hamas Agreement.

[437] Despite its Sunni Islamist ideology, Hamas has been flexible and pragmatic in its foreign policy, moderating and toning down its religious rhetoric when expedient;[438] it has developed strong ties with Iran,[439] and has also established relations with constitutionally secular states such as Syria and Russia.

[431] The relationship between Hamas and Qatar strengthened in 2008 and 2009 when Khaled Meshaal was invited to attend the Doha Summit where he was seated next to the then Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who pledged $250 million to repair the damage caused by Israel in the Israeli war on Gaza.

[457][452] In May 2018, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tweeted to the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu that Hamas is not a terrorist organization but a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power.