(NewsNation) — While the war between Israel and Hamas is taking place on the ground between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the political leadership of the Palestinian militant group and political faction is elsewhere in Qatar.
That’s where Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, resides.
Like much of the current leadership of the Palestinian factions, Haniyeh was born as a refugee in the Gaza Strip in 1962, the son of parents who fled what is now Ashkelon, in Israel, during the 1948 war.
Over the decades, he rose from a student activist to a key political functionary in Hamas, eventually rising to the head of its political leadership.
Haniyeh has never served as the international representative of the Palestinians to the world. That role has long been filled by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is largely controlled by the Palestinian political party Fatah.
That organization, once led by Yasser Arafat, has for years been the main representative to the United Nations and other diplomatic organizations. The PLO, now run by Mahmoud Abbas, presides over the Palestinian territories in the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza.
But Hamas, founded in 1987, has long vied for power with the PLO for control of the Palestinian cause and narrative. Unlike the PLO, which gave up the use of armed resistance against Israel following a diplomatic process initiated by the United States, Hamas has never renounced violence and has served as the most organized military threat to Israel in recent years.
The group is made up of at least 20,000 members and is largely based in Gaza, where it serves as the government, media and military for more than two million Palestinians.
While both Hamas and the PLO advocate for a Palestinian state along 1967 borders, which is the global consensus, their differing approaches to the conflict with Israel have left the two halves of Palestinian territories in vastly different circumstances.
Hamas’ continued support for violence against Israelis has isolated it diplomatically from most of the world. While Israel hasn’t maintained settlements — outposts of residences outside of its legally recognized borders — in Gaza since its disengagement in 2005, it has imposed a blockade of the region for the past 16 years, preventing it from developing its economy. Yet, Hamas — who took control of Gaza in 2007 — has still been able to develop a stable arsenal with help from Iran.
However, many believe Hamas’ arsenal still won’t stand a chance against Israeli retaliation.
“Hamas does not have a large number of ground troops, tanks or aircraft. They can’t fight on a battlefield and hold their own against the Israelis, so they have to use terrorism,” Kenneth Gray, a senior lecturer at the University of New Haven, said.
“They have hostages. They’ve used human shields before,” Gray continued.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Iran is one of Hamas’ biggest bankrollers, providing about $100 million every year to Palestinian groups considered terrorist organizations by the U.S.
But while Iran is in the picture, there isn’t enough evidence or specifics to corroborate a recent Wall Street Journal report that alleged Iranians helped plan the attack in Israel.
“Iran may be really the ones playing chess here. They may be moving the pieces around,” Gray said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians in the West Bank live amid 700,000 Israeli settlers, defended by a robust Israeli military presence and a network of checkpoints and roadways that have made it impossible to create a Palestinian nation.
The Israeli calculus about Hamas has long been conflicted. The country, along with the United States and much of the world, views Hamas as a terrorist organization that cannot be negotiated with. But Israel also initially viewed Hamas as a strategic asset to divide the Palestinian movement and weaken the PLO.
With far superior surveillance technology and firepower, Israel was able to contain Hamas and experienced few casualties from their violence for the past 16 years. This also freed them to use their military to secure settlement expansion in the West Bank, something that has been a particular priority for the conservative government Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading.
But after the tragedy in South Israel, thinking among Israeli policy planners may be changing, and the country may finally choose to try to extinguish Hamas rather than manage it.
Osama Hamdan, a senior representative of Hamas, told NewsNation that the group will resist until everyone accepts it is a nation with citizens who have their own rights, own land, own homes and is an independent sovereign state.
