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Hamas likely counted on Israel's rage, to have Israel exposed and wake up the world, but probably underestimated how far the West would let things go.
Looking at the biography of Yahya Sunwar, current leader of Hamas
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yahya-Sunwar
- Born 1962 in the Khan Younis refugee camp to parents who had been displaced from Ashkelon in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
- Enrolled at the Islamic University of Gaza early 80's
- 1982 Sinwar was detained for his participation in organizations that combined Islamic thought with Palestinian nationalism
- 1985, prior to the formation of Hamas, Sinwar helped organize al-Majd, a network of Islamist youths who tasked themselves with exposing the growing number of Palestinian informants who had been recruited by Israel in recent years.
- 1987 Hamas was form, al-Majd was folded into its security cadre.
- 1988 the network was found to possess weapons, and Sinwar was detained by Israel for several weeks.
- 1989 convicted for the murder of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel and was sentenced to four life sentences in prison.
- In prison he made a point to punish fellow prisoners he suspected of being informants and once compelled some 1,600 prisoners to undertake a hunger strike. He also spent much of his spare time studying what he could about his Israeli enemies, reading Israeli newspapers and becoming fluent in Hebrew in the process.
- 2011 Released as part of a prisoner swap deal for Ghilad Shalit (IDF soldier abducted in 2006)
- 2012 Elected member of Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip.
- 2015 Put on the terrorist watchlist by the US for making calls on militants to capture Israelis.
- 2017 Elected head of Hamas in Gaza
- Months after Sinwar took the reins, Hamas forged a reconciliation deal with the PA, and, for the first time since 2007, it relinquished control of much of the Gaza Strip to the PA for a brief period.
- 2018 Negotiations with Israel for a long-term truce were underway and continued until the announcement in January 2020 of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s peace plan, which was embraced by Israel as a path forward but dismissed by the Palestinians as a nonstarter.
- 2021 Return to his more regular hostility after weeks of escalating tensions in Jerusalem boiled over, and clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, particularly at the compound surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque, left hundreds injured. Hamas responded by sending rockets into Jerusalem and southern and central Israel, prompting 11 days of intense fighting between Hamas and Israel.
- 2022 Rally celebrating the anniversary of Hamas’s founding, he called upon each person to “be ready to rise up as a gale to defend Al-Aqsa” if Israel would not conclude a deal to release Palestinian prisoners.
- 2023 Hamas led the Oct 7 assault that it dubbed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”
Doesn't look like he'll give up, age 61, spend 22 years in an Israeli prison, tried to negotiate but got 'Trumped', then lost hope for further negotiations as the violence towards Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank only increased while the world slowly forgot about Gaza.
What does Hamas actually want to achieve
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/10/23911661/hamas-israel-war-gaza-palestine-explainer
What Hamas wants
At its core, Hamas wants an independent Palestinian state, one that, according to its 2017 manifesto, would at the very least include the land Palestinians held in 1967, a position Israeli governments have long said is out of the question. It also wants greater political power, both in Palestine and internationally.
“Its ultimate goal is the liberation of all of historic Palestine, but Hamas has declared its willingness to reach a long-term cease-fire with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian state,” Syracuse University Middle Eastern history professor Osamah Khalil told Vox.
Of course it depends on who you ask, for example
The group wants to destroy Israel (BBC)
Hamas wants all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, which includes the modern state of Israel (Reuters)
But look at their own ideology, the fight is against Zionism
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.
2. Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.
8. By virtue of its justly balanced middle way and moderate spirit, Islam – for Hamas - provides a comprehensive way of life and an order that is fit for purpose at all times and in all places. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.
9. Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry. It is the religion that inculcates in its followers the value of standing up to aggression and of supporting the oppressed; it motivates them to give generously and make sacrifices in defence of their dignity, their land, their peoples and their holy places.
14. The Zionist project is a racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist project based on seizing the properties of others; it is hostile to the Palestinian people and to their aspiration for freedom, liberation, return and self-determination. The Israeli entity is the plaything of the Zionist project and its base of aggression.
15. The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.
16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
18. The following are considered null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate Document, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah; it is also in violation of human rights that are guaranteed by international conventions, foremost among them is the right to self-determination.
19. There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, Judaization or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate. Rights never lapse.
20. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
They're willing to negotiate as they have been willing to do so in the past. However it has always come down to more concessions from the Palestinians, always in favor of Israel and the occupation has never let up, nor the apartheid system. In that environment there will never be a solution.
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