Myths and false narratives are the Islamic Resistance Movement’s greatest weapon.
DOCTRINE
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated as Hamas, began in 1987 as an offshoot of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the relationship has evolved. It has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. According to its original 1988 charter, its goal is the complete annihilation of the State of Israel.
Introduction “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Article 7 “The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.’ (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).”
Article 28 “Arab countries surrounding Israel are asked to open their borders before the fighters from among the Arab and Islamic nations so that they could consolidate their efforts with those of their Muslim brethren in Palestine.”
Article 32 “The Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road.”
FUNDING
The Gaza Strip is a tiny 141-square-mile enclave packed with 2.1 million people. Hamas raises $350 million in annual revenue by taxing the Gaza population, but its main source of revenue is foreign aid. It receives roughly $350 million per year from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which also seeks Israel’s annihilation. It also receives $360 million per year in international aid funneled through Qatar. Much of this aid, instead of being used to care for Gaza’s people, is used to finance Hamas’s war against Israel.
CONTROL
The chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau is the overall and de facto leader, but the position has been vacant since Yahya Sinwar was killed on Oct. 16, 2024. The group is led by a five-man council until a new election is scheduled. The council consists of four senior leaders plus an unnamed adviser.
FAMINE?
Even before the Israel-Hamas war began, roughly two thirds of Gazans were classified as moderately or severely food insecure. But the famine isn’t a result of insufficient food aid. Since May, well over 8,000 aid trucks carrying food have entered Gaza. A study published on June 2 by the Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition indicated that food shipments to Gaza are enough to feed the enclave’s entire population with 3,347 calories each. Yet the food is not reaching most of the people. Veteran Israeli journalist Ehud Ya’ari has highlighted how, since the beginning of the war, Hamas has pocketed at least $500 million from selling captured aid. The U.S. Agency for International Development says that many Palestinians raid the food trucks and hoard the food before everyone gets what they need. In other words, Hamas and its supporters are selling food to procure weapons—while their own people starve.
TERROR
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. This was the third-largest terrorist attack on record. Hamas-led terrorist attacks since 1987 have killed about 2,500 people total, with the October 7 victims making up nearly half that number.
DECEIT
Hamas employs 1,500 propaganda operatives, including hundreds of combat photographers, to make it look like Gaza’s Palestinian population is oppressed by Israel instead of the Muslim Brotherhood. These operatives also work to brainwash the Palestinian population by producing children’s programming designed to indoctrinate children to hate the Jews. In 2009, Hamas’s al-Aqsa Television featured a Mickey Mouse lookalike named “Farfur” who was killed by Jews in a fictional TV show in an attempt to turn children against Israel.
SUPPORT
U.S. intelligence figures estimate that only 9,000 to 12,000 terrorists are actively fighting for Hamas—less than 0.6 percent of Gaza’s entire population of 2.1 million. Public opinion polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicate that 37 percent of Gazans support these fighters, but the majority of Gaza’s Palestinian population are unwillingly oppressed by an Islamic dictatorship.
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