Hamas Is Rising on a Wave of Violence

As 7-year-olds the world over are prone to do, the little boy squirmed and fidgeted as his mother bent over him to fuss with his clothing.

First she straightened the collar of his tiny military-style camouflage uniform. Then she smoothed his green Hamas headband, giving him a final pat before he scampered off to join the funeral procession Friday for a Palestinian mother and baby who had been killed the day before in an Israeli missile attack targeting a Hamas militant.

“I hope he will grow up to be a martyr one day -- that would be only natural, given the state of our lives,” the boy’s mother, wearing a black veil that concealed all but her eyes, said matter-of-factly. Her son, she said, is called Izzidin -- in honor of the military wing of Hamas, Izzidin al-Qassam.

In the gritty, sand-strewn streets of the Gaza Strip, scenes such as this help illustrate just how hard it will be for Israel to achieve anything resembling a clear victory in its war against the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.

After a week of strikes and counterstrikes -- including raids that wounded senior Hamas leader Abdulaziz Rantisi, killed six other militants and caused scores of Palestinian civilian casualties, plus a bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed 17 Israelis -- Palestinian popular support for the Islamic militant group appears only to be growing. At the same time, the political standing of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has plummeted, and the fragile American-backed peace plan has been endangered.

Hamas and senior Israeli officials agree on one thing: Their fight has become a no-holds-barred confrontation. Israel’s defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, declared that Hamas should be crushed, and Israel said it would mark for death any member of the movement it considers a threat. Hamas vowed vengeance “like an earthquake” and said every Israeli man, woman and child was a target.

In strictly military terms, Israel, with its powerful, high-tech army, would appear able to subdue Hamas, whose ranks are believed to consist of only a few hundred active field operatives and whose arsenal consists mainly of the relatively small amounts of explosives needed to carry out suicide bombings.

What Hamas lacks in numbers and firepower, it makes up for with its ability to operate in small, secretive cells that in most cases act independently, working day in and day out to try to slip through Israel’s security net and carry out suicide bombings and other attacks.

A Complex Conflict

“It’s not like a war between armies or states,” said retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, who until 18 months ago was the director of army intelligence. “It’s low-intensity conflict, and low-intensity conflict is much more complicated than high.”

Despite scathing criticism from Israeli commentators over the scope and timing of this campaign of assassination against Hamas leaders just a week after the Jordan summit on the peace “road map” backed by President Bush, Israel’s military and intelligence establishment said it believes that to protect Israeli lives, there was no choice but to act.

“In some ways, the dynamic at work here regarding Israel and Hamas is completely divorced from external factors, having nothing to do with the Bush initiative or anything else,” said Anat Kurz, a scholar at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the study of Islamic militant groups. “It has an internal logic to it that is very, very difficult to disrupt.”

From Israel’s standpoint, the preferred course of action would be for the Palestinian security apparatus to keep a lid on Hamas. Among the key provisions of the peace plan is that Palestinians take responsibility for security, but after being targeted by Israel throughout the 32 months of uprising, the Palestinian security service is crippled.

On Saturday, Israel and the Palestinian Authority held their first high-level security consultations since the Jordan summit to discuss how to quell the current spasm of violence.

Abbas has tried, unsuccessfully, to broker a truce with Hamas and other militant factions. Israeli officials do not think that a cease-fire with Hamas is the answer, because they believe that the group would simply use the time to regroup and reorganize -- and emerge stronger than ever.

In recent days, Israel’s offensive against Hamas has had the unintended effect of bringing Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, sidelined at U.S. and Israeli insistence, back to the political forefront. Abbas traveled to Jordan for eye surgery late last week, leaving Arafat to oversee Egyptian-mediated efforts to restart a dialogue with Hamas.

At key junctures in years past, Israel has also unwittingly strengthened Hamas with its actions.

One of the biggest boosts to the group was the 1997 release from an Israeli prison of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, its spiritual leader, as part of a deal Israel made to free two intelligence agents in the wake of a bungled assassination attempt against another Hamas leader in Jordan.

Yassin returned to Gaza in triumph, and Hamas’ power base there has been growing since.

Israel also aided Hamas by confining Arafat to the West Bank city of Ramallah for the last two years. With the erosion of Arafat’s authority in Gaza, Hamas has been able to flourish.

Hamas’ deepest roots are in Gaza, where the group came into being at the start of the previous 1987-93 Palestinian uprising, or intifada, as an offshoot of the radical pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas Ideology

Hamas ideology centers on the destruction of Israel. It was formerly a proponent of an Islamic state for the Palestinians, though in recent years it has moderated that position, signaling it might be willing to share power in a secular government. Hamas also has built popular support with its extensive network of social services such as clinics and charity groups.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has reportedly been weighing the notion of an invasion of Gaza to uproot Hamas. He contemplated the idea early this year, ordering a series of incursions into the group’s strongholds in refugee camps and urban neighborhoods.

The Israeli strikes in the crowded confines of Gaza -- using tanks and helicopter gunships -- killed civilians as well as militants, attracting sharp international criticism and U.S. pressure for restraint.

Moreover, many Israelis, recalling the bitter war of attrition in Gaza during the first intifada, regard it as a dangerous quagmire for their soldier offspring, siblings and spouses.

“You know what it is to conquer the Gaza Strip? It’s a fight from house to house, building to building,” said Shmuel Sandler, an analyst at Bar-Ilan University. “There are a lot of serious problems with that option.”

Even before last week’s Israeli strikes, Hamas’ military wing had been weakened by months of what Israel calls targeted killings. In northern West Bank cities such as Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, Israeli forces hunted down members of Hamas cells blamed for a spate of suicide bombings in spring 2002.

At the same time, though, Hamas gained strength elsewhere, most notably in the West Bank city of Hebron, where at least half a dozen suicide bombers -- including the 18-year-old who blew up the bus last week -- were recruited and trained.

Hamas has always tried to draw a public distinction between members of its military wing and its political one. Although Israeli intelligence believed that the line between the two was porous, self-described political leaders such as Rantisi and Yassin had been considered relatively safe from Israeli reprisals, making frequent public appearances.

Now, that has changed.

“I’d say if this war goes on, nobody will be exempt,” said Eran Lerman, a former senior Israeli intelligence official who is now the director of the Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee.

Senior Hamas leaders insist that they are not worried about the prospect of being targeted. Yassin, for example, made fiery speeches at last week’s funerals of Hamas men. Rantisi spewed defiance from his hospital bed after being wounded in the attempt on his life.

Still, those close to the group say leaders are taking precautions.

Several days ago, Ismail abu Shanab, a senior Hamas figure, hastily excused himself and cut off a live interview with the Arabic-language satellite channel Al Jazeera when he heard Israeli helicopters overhead.

By making martyrs of Hamas men, Israel fans the flames of the group’s popularity.

Enormous and volatile crowds turned out in Gaza for last week’s funerals. Mourners said any action against Hamas leaders, Yassin in particular, would trigger an outpouring of rage -- and send more young men into the arms of the group.

“At a moment like this, when it is seen as being under all-out attack by Israel, Hamas will be quite motivated to show its defiance by succeeding in carrying out more attacks,” said Kurz, the Jaffee Center analyst. “What’s meant to be preemptive and preventive may turn out instead to be a trigger.”