The Hamas organization was established exactly 37 years ago during this period. The name “Hamas” is an acronym in Arabic for its full name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Resistance Movement). The Palestinian terror organization, which has a long history of bloody conflict with the State of Israel, culminating in the massacre on October 7, 2023, was officially founded by the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza under Sheikh Ahmed Yassin just days after the outbreak of the First Intifada in December 1987.
In Israel, it was believed that the Palestinian issue was under control after 20 years of occupation. This was attributed to a combination of political hopelessness and a dire economic situation, which indeed accelerated the Palestinian uprising. However, the spark that ignited the First Intifada came on December 8, 1987, when four Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli truck driver who collided with two Palestinian taxis. Palestinians viewed the incident as deliberate, leading to widespread riots in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Although the intifada erupted spontaneously and without any premeditated planning by the local Palestinian leadership or the PLO, the latter quickly took advantage and played a central role in directing the uprising. The intifada received extensive international media coverage, severely damaging Israel’s image as it was portrayed as a brutal occupier, while Palestinians were depicted as fighters for their national rights. Subsequently, in an attempt to achieve political gains, the local Palestinian leadership pressured the PLO leadership in Tunis, urging it to meet the conditions required for negotiations with Israel.
In December 1988, fearing that the local leadership in the territories might overshadow the PLO, Yasser Arafat declared recognition of the State of Israel and acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. Additionally, Arafat announced that the PLO renounced all forms of terrorism and called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
How Far Should One Go for the Cause?
The PLO wasn’t the only entity exploiting the intifada for political purposes and to bring the Palestinian issue back to the forefront. The Islamic opposition, which had continually challenged the PLO’s secular-nationalist ideas, also began to take shape, with Hamas being the most prominent among them.
In its 1988 charter, Hamas called for the destruction of Israel through armed struggle and the liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea,” which it views as Islamic waqf land that cannot be relinquished. The charter also described Jews as the source of the world’s problems. In its earlier form, Hamas operated under a different name, Al-Mujamma Al-Islami (The Islamic Center), an organization founded by Yassin to address educational and economic challenges in Gaza.
While the PLO posed the main security challenge in the territories, some in Israel encouraged the growth and activities of Yassin’s organization, which promoted Islamic values and social welfare as a counterbalance to the PLO’s nationalist ideology. Yassin’s organization became a stronghold of influence in Gaza, taking control of mosques, establishing clinics, orphanages, kindergartens, libraries, vocational centers, and providing aid to needy families.
Yassin and his associates also took over the Islamic University of Gaza, which became the primary source of the organization’s activists. Gaza donated heavily to the university, and Saudi and Jordanian funds supported its activities.
In the early 1980s, a heated debate emerged within the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza about how to confront Israel on the path to liberating Palestine. While Yassin argued that Palestinian society needed first to embrace Islamic values, others called for a more militant approach and armed struggle. One such figure was Dr. Fathi Shaqaqi, a Muslim Brotherhood member who supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Following disagreements with Yassin, Shaqaqi left the Muslim Brotherhood and established the Islamic Jihad movement.
Despite Yassin’s decision not to engage in armed struggle against Israel at the time, he founded the Al-Mujahideen Al-Filastiniyyun (Palestinian Jihad Fighters) organization in 1982 to carry out attacks against Israeli security forces. In 1984, Yassin was arrested with a large cache of weapons and sentenced to 13 years in Israeli prison for arms possession and leading a hostile organization. However, he was released just a year later in the Jibril Agreement, which saw 1,150 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for three Israeli soldiers.
Yassin’s imprisonment did not dampen his motivation. Six months before the outbreak of the intifada, he and his associates established the organization’s military wing, led by Salah Shehadeh.
Feared Arresting Yassin
The outbreak of the First Intifada disrupted Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s plans and those of his followers, who feared losing Palestinian public support to the PLO and other organizations if they did not join the fight against Israel. As a result, they decided to establish Hamas and focus on armed struggle, openly competing primarily with the PLO for leadership of the intifada. Yassin’s position was significantly strengthened, partly due to his role as a mediator after the intifada destabilized the local judicial system in Gaza, which had been established with Israel’s assistance. Under his leadership, Hamas became the largest resistance organization in Gaza, mainly at the expense of Fatah.
In 1988, over 100 Hamas operatives were arrested by Israeli security forces. However, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided not to arrest Sheikh Yassin, fearing that such an act would be perceived as Israel targeting Islam and religious figures, potentially escalating tensions. However, in May 1989, after it was revealed that Yassin had ordered continued armed struggle and terror activities, a decision was made to arrest him and over 500 of his operatives, including Mahmoud al-Zahar. During this wave of arrests, Yahya Sinwar’s involvement came to light. Sinwar had been arrested for the first time in 1988 after preparing a homemade explosive device intended for an attack on Israeli soldiers. During interrogation, he admitted to leading Hamas’s internal security unit, Al-Majd, and personally executing 12 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
The arrests in May 1989 marked the first time the Israeli public became aware of Hamas, the murderous Palestinian terror organization. This followed the murders of two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon, by Hamas operatives. On February 16, 1989, Sasportas was kidnapped and killed after hitching a ride near Ashkelon with a car carrying Hamas members. Similarly, Saadon was abducted and murdered on May 3, 1989, after hitching a ride near Kiryat Malakhi. Sasportas’s body was found four days later during the search for Saadon, whose body was only discovered in July 1996.
Interrogations revealed that Yassin had ordered the kidnappings of soldiers, leading to his sentencing to life imprisonment plus 15 years in an Israeli prison. His arrest, along with that of many Hamas members, severely disrupted the organization. To rebuild Hamas’s operational infrastructure, Musa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, arrived in Gaza in June 1989 with hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the organization. This led to a shift in Hamas’s center of gravity to operations abroad.
In late September 1989, Israel took another step against Hamas when its security establishment declared the organization illegal in the territories. This was also the first time the Israeli public was exposed to Hamas’s charter, which called for the destruction of Israel.
The Bottom Line: The Religious Element in the Conflict
It can be said that only by mid-1989 did Israel begin to understand that a deadly Islamic organization had emerged in the territories. Unlike the PLO, Hamas introduced a religious dimension to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, invoking Islam to advocate for the eradication of the Jewish state in the Middle East. However, it seems not everyone in Israel fully comprehended the threat posed by Hamas.
Micha Kubi, a research fellow at ICSG and former head of the Shin Bet’s investigative division in Gaza, who was deeply familiar with the organization and its murderous nature, recounts how Israel missed the opportunity to imprison for many years those who later committed heinous terror attacks against Jews.
In addition to criticizing the Shin Bet for its handling of the 300 Bus Affair and the Landoi Commission report, which profoundly impacted the agency and its investigators, Kubi mentions that the prosecution at the time made absurd plea deals with senior Hamas figures. Among them was Imad Aqel, who became the head of the organization’s military wing in the early 1990s. After his release, Aqel was responsible for the murders of 11 IDF soldiers and an Israeli civilian. Another notable figure was Mohammed Deif, the mastermind behind the October 7 massacre.
One way or another, the fight against Hamas continues to haunt the State of Israel to this day, with no end in sight.