As Israel’s relentless air campaign has killed thousands of civilians inside Gaza, Hamas – which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and Europe – has been able to cast itself as the lone armed group fighting back against a brutal oppressor killing women and children. Officials familiar with the different assessments say the group has successfully positioned itself across some parts of the Arab and Muslim world as a defender of the Palestinian cause and an effective fighter against Israel.
Hamas’ growing influence comes in the wake of its ghastly October attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 men, women and children.
Before October 7, a senior administration official said, “Hamas [was] not a wildly popular organization. Today it’s more popular.”
It’s possible the conflict will do more to boost Hamas’ influence outside of Gaza than within it, where years of poor governance have bred mistrust.
A poll completed, remarkably, on October 6 found that 67% of Palestinians in Gaza reported having either “no trust at all” or “not a lot of trust” in Hamas – something that some analysts believe might have been a factor in Hamas’ motivation for the attack. Palestinians inside Gaza were more likely to blame persistent food shortages on Hamas’ leadership than on the Israeli blockade that has limited supplies into Gaza since 2007, for example.
Some analysts within the US government privately fear that Israel’s prosecution of its war against Hamas — including a punishing air campaign that has killed nearly 20,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza — will have the unintended effect of legitimizing Hamas politically and inspiring more terrorism.
“In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier this month. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”