Israel is trapped in a dilemma

Hamas’s attack was designed to massacre as many civilians as possible, while also striking at Israeli military posts along the Gaza border. Hamas knew that 7 October was going to be the biggest attack in its history, even if it didn’t know that it would be able to lay waste to 20 border communities, causing 50,000 to evacuate and leading to the deaths of 1,300. As the war grows and Iranian-backed groups begin to threaten a wider conflict, it’s worth looking at what might come next. To understand that we need to know how Hamas got to this point and what are its plans for the region.  

The terror group was founded in the late 1980s during the First Intifada and has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It has sought to blend religious extremism with Palestinian nationalism, to present an alternative to the more popular Palestinian groups that dominated from the 1950s to 1970s.