Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist nationalist political organization with an associated military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. The name is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement". It is the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip since it defeated its rival political party, Fatah, in 2007. Many countries, including the United States and the European Union, have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Hamas was founded in December 1987 by Palestinian cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, following the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation. The problem it sought to solve was the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the perceived secularism and ineffectiveness of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its founding document, the 1988 Hamas Charter, called for the elimination of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine.
Hamas operates through a dual mechanism: a political and social welfare wing (dawa) that provides services like schools and clinics, and a military wing that engages in armed resistance against Israel. The organization is closely connected to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is dominated by Fatah and governs parts of the West Bank. It also receives financial and material support from regional actors like Iran.
Hamas's official stance has changed recently with the release of a new policy document, A Document of General Principles and Policies, in May 2017. This document supplemented, but did not formally replace, the 1988 Charter. The 2017 document stated that Hamas would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, without formally recognizing Israel. It also removed the explicit antisemitic language of the original charter, stating that its conflict is with the "Zionist project" and not with Jews because of their religion. The core principle of armed resistance for the "complete liberation of Palestine" remained the same.