Israeli effort to calm Arab anger after a botched attempt by Mossad, Israel’s intelli-
gence service, to kill another Hamas official, Khaled Meshel, in Jordan. In March
2004, during the second Palestinian intifada, the Israeli military assassinated Yassin
and killed several supporters as they left a mosque in Gaza City. Less than one month
after the killing of Yassin, Israel assassinated his successor, Abd al-Aziz Rantisi.
In 1991, Hamas had signaled its intent to escalate its attacks against Israel with
the formation of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, an armed wing named after a leader
of the Arab revolt against British rule in Palestine during the late 1930s. The Qassam
Brigades carried out its first car bombing on April 6, 1994, killing eight people in the
Israeli city of Afula. Exactly one week later, the first suicide bomber sponsored by
Hamas attacked Israeli civilians in Hadera, killing five people. Such high-profile sui-
cide bombings, primarily targeting civilians, attracted international attention. Some
Hamas officials called the suicide bomb the “Palestinian F-16,” a reference to the U.S.-
supplied warplane that had become a staple of Israel’s military.
Although at the time primarily known in Israel and Western countries for its sui-
cide bombings and other attacks against Israelis, much of Hamas’s popularity in the
territories, particularly in Gaza, flowed from its extensive network of schools, health
clinics, and other social services. Funded by donations from Iran, some of the oil-rich
Persian Gulf Arab states, and expatriate Palestinians, the Hamas network grew to offer
tens of thousands of Palestinians the kinds of services that neither Israel through its
occupation nor the PLO had been able or willing to provide. The popularity and neces-
sity of these social services helped Hamas win numerous local elections in 2005 and
Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 (The Hamas Government, p. 317).
Following are excerpts from the covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or
Hamas, adopted on August 18, 1988.DOCUMENT
Hamas’s Covenant
AUGUST18, 1988... This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its pic-
ture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes,
and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews
is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably
should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should
be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world,
until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized....
Definition of the Movement
Article One
The Islamic Resistance Movement: The Movement’s programme is Islam. From it, it
draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It
206 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS