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What is Hamas? The Group that Rules the Gaza Strip Has Fought Several Rounds of War with Israel

Armed fighters stand guard during an exhibition of military arms, organized by the fighters of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, at a military site in the center of Gaza City, 30 June 2023. (EPA)
Armed fighters stand guard during an exhibition of military arms, organized by the fighters of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, at a military site in the center of Gaza City, 30 June 2023. (EPA)
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What is Hamas? The Group that Rules the Gaza Strip Has Fought Several Rounds of War with Israel

Armed fighters stand guard during an exhibition of military arms, organized by the fighters of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, at a military site in the center of Gaza City, 30 June 2023. (EPA)
Armed fighters stand guard during an exhibition of military arms, organized by the fighters of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, at a military site in the center of Gaza City, 30 June 2023. (EPA)

Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched an attack inside Israel over the weekend, killing hundreds and taking others hostage. Its unprecedented breach of the border sent fighters inside border communities and military installations, shocked Israel and its allies, and raised questions about the group’s capabilities and strategy.
WHAT IS HAMAS? The group was founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee living in Gaza, during the first intifada, or uprising, which was marked by widespread protests against Israel’s occupation.
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, and a recognition of the group’s roots and early ties to one of the Sunni world’s most prominent groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the 1920s.
The group has vowed to annihilate Israel and has been responsible for many suicide bombings and other deadly attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers.
The US State Department has designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. The European Union and other Western countries also consider it a terrorist organization.
Hamas won 2006 parliamentary elections elections and in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority, dominated by rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel responded to the Hamas takeover with a blockade on Gaza, restricting movement of people and goods in and out of the territory in a step it says is needed to keep the group from developing weapons. The blockade has ravaged Gaza's economy, and Palestinians accuse Israel of collective punishment.
Hamas received backing from Arab countries. Recently, it's moved closer to Iran and its allies.
WHO ARE HAMAS' LEADERS? Hamas founder and spiritual leader Yassin — a paralyzed man who used a wheelchair — spent years in Israeli prisons and oversaw the establishment of Hamas' military wing, which carried out its first suicide attack in 1993.
Israeli forces have targeted Hamas leaders throughout the years, killing Yassin in 2004.
Khaled Mashaal, an exiled Hamas member who survived an earlier Israeli assassination attempt, became the group’s leader soon after.
Yehia Sinwar, in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in exile, are Hamas' current leaders. They realigned the group’s leadership with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon's Hezbollah. Since then, many of the group’s leaders relocated to Beirut.
WHAT DOES HAMAS WANT? Hamas has always espoused violence as a means to liberate occupied Palestinian territories and has called for the annihilation of Israel.
Hamas has carried out suicide bombings and over the years fired tens of thousands of increasingly powerful rockets from Gaza into Israel. It also established a network of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt to smuggle in weapons, as well as attack tunnels burrowing into Israel.
In recent years, Hamas had appeared to be more focused on running Gaza than attacking Israel.
WHY NOW? In recent years, Israel has made peace deals with Arab countries without having to make concessions in its conflict with the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel's new far-right government was working to cement Israeli settlements in the West Bank despite Palestinian opposition.
Hamas leaders say an Israeli crackdown on militants in the West Bank, continued construction of settlements — which the international community considers to be illegal — thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails, and its ongoing blockade of Gaza pushed it to attack.
Its leaders say hundreds of its 40,000 fighters took part in the assault. Israel says the group has about 30,000 fighters and an arsenal of rockets, including some with a range of about 250 kilometers (155 miles), and unmanned drones.

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An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
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An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)

In January 1981, Jimmy Carter nodded politely toward Ronald Reagan as the new Republican president thanked the Democrat for his administration's help after Reagan resoundingly defeated Carter the previous November.

Twenty years earlier, after a much closer race, Republican Richard Nixon clasped John F. Kennedy's hand and offered the new Democratic president a word of encouragement.

The US has a long tradition of defeated presidential candidates sharing the inauguration stage with the people who defeated them, projecting to the world the orderly transfer of power. It's a practice that Vice President Kamala Harris will resume on Jan. 20 after an eight-year hiatus.

Only once in the television era — with its magnifying effect on a losing candidate's expression — has a defeated candidate skipped the exercise. That candidate, former President Donald Trump, left for Florida after a failed effort to overturn his loss based on false or unfounded theories of voter fraud.

With Harris watching, Trump is scheduled to stand on the Capitol's west steps and be sworn in for a second term.

Below are examples of episodes that have featured a losing candidate in a rite that Reagan called "nothing short of a miracle."

2001: Al Gore and George W. Bush Democrat Al Gore conceded to Republican George W. Bush after 36 days of legal battling over Florida's ballots ended with a divided Supreme Court ruling to end the recount.

But Gore, the sitting vice president, would join Bush on the west steps of the Capitol a month later as the Texas governor was sworn in. After Bush took the oath, he and Gore shook hands, spoke briefly and smiled before Gore returned to his seat clapping along to the presidential anthem, "Hail to the Chief."

A disappointed Gore accepted the outcome and his role in demonstrating continuity of governance, former Gore campaign spokeswoman Kiki McLean said.

"He may have wished, ‘I wish that was me standing there,’" McLean said. "But I don't think Gore for one minute ever doubted he should be there in his capacity as vice president."

Hillary Clinton smiles wide as she and former President Jimmy Carter, from left, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush, and former first lady Laura Bush wait for the start of the inauguration ceremony to swear President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP)

2017: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Democrat Hillary Clinton was candid about her disappointment in losing to Trump in 2016, when — like Gore against Bush — she received more votes but failed to win an Electoral College majority. "Obviously, I was crushed," she told Howard Stern on his radio show in 2019.

Calling Inauguration Day "one of the hardest days of my life," Clinton said she planned to attend Trump's swearing-in out of a sense of duty, having been first lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001. "You put on the best face possible," Clinton said on Stern's show.

2021: Mike Pence (with Trump absent) and Joe Biden Trump four years ago claimed without evidence that his loss to President Joe Biden was marred by widespread fraud. Two weeks earlier, Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol in a violent siege aimed at halting the electoral vote certification.

Instead, then-Vice President Mike Pence was the face of the outgoing administration.

"Sure, it was awkward," Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short said.

Still, Pence and his wife met privately with Biden and his wife to congratulate them in the Capitol before the ceremony, and escorted newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband out of the Capitol afterward, as tradition had prescribed, Short said.

"There was an appreciation expressed for him by members of both chambers in both parties," he said.

1993: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Bush stood on the Capitol's west steps three times for his swearing-in — as vice president twice and in 1989 to be inaugurated as president. He would attend again in 1993 in defeat.

He joined Bill Clinton, the Democrat who beat him, on the traditional walk out onto the east steps. Bush would return triumphantly to the inaugural ceremony eight years later as the father of Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.

1961: Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy Nixon had just lost the 1960 election by fewer than 120,000 votes in what was the closest presidential contest in 44 years. But the departing vice president approached Kennedy with a wide grin, a handshake and an audible "good luck" just seconds after the winning Democrat's swearing-in.

Nixon would have to wait eight years to be sworn in as president, while his losing Democratic opponent — outgoing Vice President Hubert Humphrey — looked on. He was inaugurated a second time after winning reelection in 1972, only to resign after the Watergate scandal.

President-elect Ronald Reagan applauds as outgoing President Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd at Reagan's inaugural ceremony, in Washington, Jan. 20, 1981. (AP Photo, File)

1933: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Like Bush, Hoover would attend just one inauguration as a new president before losing to a Democrat four years later. But Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 swearing-in would not be Hoover's last. Hoover would live for another 31 years, see four more presidents sworn in, and sit in places of honor at the two inaugurations of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1897: Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison Cleveland, the sitting Democratic president, lost reelection in 1888 while winning more popular votes than former Indiana Sen. Benjamin Harrison. But Cleveland still managed to hold Harrison’s umbrella while the Republican was sworn in during a rainy 1889 inauguration.

Elected to a second, non-consecutive term in 1892, Cleveland, however, would stand solemnly behind William McKinley four years later at the Republican's 1897 inauguration, leaving the presidency that day after losing the 1896 nomination of his own party.

Cleveland was the only president to win two non-consecutive terms until Trump's victory in November.