Understanding October 7 through Hamas’s Adaptability and Leadership Structure

Abstract

This essay examines Hamas’s pragmatic adaptability and its decentralized leadership structure in order to offer insight into the movement’s decision to attack on October 7, 2023. It hones in on Hamas’s decision-making processes since it gained control of Gaza in 2007, situating the discussion within regional and international attempts to contain the movement into mainstream politics. The essay presents a critique of this approach to Hamas since 2007, highlighting regional and international failures to engage with Hamas as both a resistance movement and governing ­authority. Ultimately, the essay aims to clarify the complex interactions between Hamas’s leadership model and regional actors that preceded the October 7 events.

Keywords:

• Hamas
• Gaza
• Palestine
• West Bank
• Israel
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Palestinian resistance
• leadership
• governance

Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent genocidal response have undeniably transformed the global popular movement for Palestine, though foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel remains largely unchanged. That said, Israel’s egregious atrocities in Gaza have prevented it from successfully forming a united global front against Hamas. Instead, since October 7, 2023, the red carpet has been rolled out for Hamas leadership in at least four international capitals, including Moscow and Beijing, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, and Muscat and Ankara.¹ On the popular level, too, Hamas has experienced a surge in popularity among Arab and Muslim populations since October. In the West Bank, satisfaction with Hamas tripled to 85 percent after October 7, and even in Gaza, Hamas’s popularity has also increased.²

In order to understand these developments surrounding October 7, it is important to examine Hamas’s decentralized leadership structure and its decision-making processes in the context of regional dynamics. Since 2007, Israel and regional governments have mistakenly clung to the containment strategy that has sought to subjugate Hamas, an armed resistance movement committed to defending Palestinian political rights, into mainstream politics. This shortsighted approach has overlooked Hamas’s remarkable proclivity to adapt, and to respond with force, in the face of unrelenting Israeli violations of Palestinian rights within a regional and global status quo that repeatedly fails to do anything about it.

This essay examines Hamas’s distinct ability to adapt pragmatically to changing political dynamics around it since its founding in 1987. Namely, it looks at the shifting leadership models of the movement, its willingness to reassess and reform regional alliances, and its readiness to affirm its commitment to resistance despite unrelenting pressure, in order to better understand how and why it decided to attack on October 7. Likewise, these realities afford useful paradigms for understanding why Hamas’s leadership in Gaza acted alone on the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023.

Hamas’s Pragmatic Adaptability

Hamas must be understood as more of a network entity than a centralized, hierarchical organization. While it has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, its profound connectedness to Palestinian society today underscores its evolution into a robust armed resistance movement committed to securing Palestinian political rights. This is repeatedly bolstered by its evident resilience in the face of brutal Israeli assaults since its establishment, and its unwavering refusal to recognize Israel. Moreover, Hamas has exhibited crucial adaptability since its founding in 1987; its role and behavior during the first intifada, the Oslo Accords era, the second intifada, and its governance in Gaza since 2007, are all markedly different. Thanks to its flexible internal governance model, Hamas frequently amends its bylaws to adapt to changing political conditions.³

Though Hamas was initially formed in Gaza in 1987, increasing Israeli repression drove its leadership to decentralize operations shortly thereafter, shifting to a leadership in exile,⁴ including through the Shura Council and the Executive Committee.⁵ As a result, Hamas’s political center remained outside colonized Palestine for the first twenty-two years of its existence.⁶ It was not until Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas’s victory in the 2006 elections, and its subsequent control of Gaza in 2007 that Hamas’s political center of gravity returned to Palestine. These developments intensified discussions about Hamas's leadership structure, which led to an agreement to establish a tripartite leadership model in 2009 with Gaza as its political center. The model allocated equal representation in both the Shura Council and Executive Committee to the three regions where Hamas operates: Gaza, the West Bank, and the shatat.⁷ While the model distributed power equitably between three diverse leadership centers, the restructuring complicated the decision-making process, as priorities sometimes differed. Consequently, each domain of operations became centralized, undermining the central cohesion of the Executive Committee.

Nonetheless, under the tripartite leadership formula, Hamas’s centers of operation were notably pragmatic, particularly following the uprisings that spread throughout the Arab world and North Africa in 2011, which led to the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2013. During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Hamas opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutality against Syrian opposition, and in early 2012, Hamas relocated its political bureau from Damascus to Doha,⁸ straining its relationship with Iran, a staunch Assad supporter. The loss of support from Syria and Iran was compounded by Egypt tightening restrictions on Gaza under Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in addition to sweeping crackdowns in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia against Hamas members, including the arrest of one of its leaders, Maher Salah, in Jeddah in late 2014.⁹ Hamas was thus isolated from both the “Axis of Resistance” comprising Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah, and the “Axis of Moderation” led by Saudi Arabia, alongside Jordan and Egypt.

Then, in April 2015, and to realign with the mainstream forces that dominated after the so-called Arab Spring, Hamas unexpectedly supported the Saudi-led military assault on Yemen against the pro-Iranian Houthis.¹⁰ Although King Salman of Saudi Arabia received Hamas leadership in Mecca weeks later,¹¹ the Saudi policy toward Hamas remained unmoderated, prompting the movement to direct its pragmatism elsewhere regionally. In 2016, Hamas engaged in “Strategic Dialogue” with two other regional powers: Iran¹² and Egypt. The talks with Iran in Beirut led to an agreement to avoid discussing the Syrian crisis and instead, to focus on mutually agreed-upon issues; the latter talks with the Egyptian intelligence services resulted in an agreement to sideline the contentious Muslim Brotherhood issue and enhance security collaboration in the Sinai Peninsula to combat armed groups.¹³ Hamas’s engagement with these two regional players signaled its willingness to adapt to the politically polarized landscape of the region, forming new alliances in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings.

It is noteworthy that a resistance movement with a decentralized leadership structure managed to achieve these pragmatic aims, especially in the context of considerable regional instability. Indeed, despite many challenges, Hamas continued to show exceptional political pragmatism and adaptability in its subsequent decisions. It undertook a comprehensive reassessment of its political strategy, culminating in the release of the Document of General Principles and Policies (DGPP) in May 2017.¹⁴ This document signaled a significant shift in three ways: First, it distanced Hamas from its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, Hamas expressed acceptance of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, a move closer to endorsing a two-state solution, albeit without recognizing Israel. Third, although Hamas has never abandoned its core political ideology of resistance against Israeli occupation, it broadened its definition of resistance from armed resistance to resistance “with all means.”¹⁵ Hamas thus shifted from offensive to defensive resistance in Gaza and embraced “popular resistance,” as Yahya Sinwar announced in a televised interview in May 2018,¹⁶ in an attempt to align with the so-called peaceful resistance advocated by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. This shift contributed to the launch of the Great March of Return in 2018, during which Israeli fire resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injured in Gaza.¹⁷

In the aftermath of Israel’s 2008–9 assault on Gaza, Hamas transitioned to a more defensive military doctrine in light of Israel’s hardline deterrence strategy—the “mowing the lawn” approach—aimed at diminishing Hamas’s capabilities in Gaza. Between each of Israel’s subsequent large-scale bombardments of Gaza, Hamas actively managed armaments within the besieged enclave, including in confrontations with armed factions that resisted its governance and carried out independent operations against Israel. A notable conflict involved the suppression of Jund Ansar Allah, an armed group affiliated with al-Qaeda, which ended with the elimination of the group, including its leaders.¹⁸ In its quest to consolidate power in Gaza, Hamas enforced a stringent security protocol across the enclave, necessitating bloody confrontations against some powerful clans and families.¹⁹ This also involved the arrest of rocket launchers from other resistance factions that acted independently.²⁰

But following these measures through which Hamas secured its dominance in Gaza, leaders in the movement formed the Joint Room for Palestinian Resistance Factions in 2018, incorporating all twelve military wings in Gaza under its auspices²¹ and significantly enhancing both internal and border security. Under this pragmatic leadership model, and after a thirteen-year hiatus in direct military engagements with Israeli forces from Gaza, Hamas was able to launch an attack in May 2021 in response to Israeli assaults on the al-Aqsa Mosque complex and Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Understanding Hamas’s Decision on October 7

In the fifteen years preceding October 7, 2023, active conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza amounted to approximately ninety-three days only, including the assaults of 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.²² At the time of writing, the October 7 war has dragged on for over 276 days. While Hamas’s commitment to resistance cannot be understated in any analysis of the causes of October 7, the regional context must be taken into account. Over the past decade, Hamas’s pragmatic political initiatives have consistently been met with rigid and unyielding responses, whether from Israel or neighboring states. Indeed, Hamas’s efforts to moderate its political stance in favor of Saudi Arabia and away from Iran were disregarded. Moreover, Israel’s relentless military assaults on Gaza since 2008, its ongoing siege and blockade—along with Egypt—of the enclave, and the litany of its violations in the West Bank, have wrought untold destruction and death that have not led to accountability measures. Rather, several Arab states signed on to US-brokered normalization agreements with an Israeli regime that has grown increasingly more extreme.

These realities are critical to understanding October 7. Foremost is the fact that Israel and regional states seemed to have mistaken Hamas’s pragmatic defensive position over the years for its subjugation within mainstream politics. They seemed to have forgotten that Hamas is fundamentally a resistance movement despite its proven willingness to conform to the exigencies of a rapidly shifting regional context since its assumption of power in Gaza in 2007. On October 7, Hamas thus reasserted its founding doctrine of resistance in the face of an entrenching status quo that was subjecting Palestinians to immense death and suffering, moving farther and farther away from securing them any political rights.

In the years leading up to October 7, Palestinian statehood—or in the least, an end to Israeli occupation—seemed farther from possible than ever before, and leadership in Ramallah was complicit in the worsening status quo. But rather than channeling Hamas’s pragmatism over the years into constructive engagement in the political process, the international community sought to contain the movement, utilizing a combination of incentives and punishments based on the carrot-and-stick approach. However, apart from providing a Qatari financial grant to buy fuel, supporting government employees in Gaza, and mitigating restrictions imposed on the Rafah crossing, hardly any “carrots” were offered or withheld from Hamas; instead, the strategy excessively relied on punitive measures to maintain containment—a strategy that has been thoroughly undermined since October 7. In other words, the lack of international resolve to establish a viable path to Palestinian statehood and pressure Israel to end its occupation, coupled with an increasingly extremist Israeli governing regime, undermined efforts to engage with a resistance movement that was mistakenly assumed to be subjugated and mainstreamed politically.

Connected to this is the overwhelming underestimation—or ignorance—among Israel and regional states of what Hamas is and how it operates. Prior to October 7, Hamas was a resistance movement that was also a governing body. Since its assumption to power in Gaza, Hamas has been operating as a state for Palestinians in Gaza. But the prolonged years of siege, along with the series of destructive Israeli assaults, seriously limited Hamas’s capacity to govern, especially at times of escalations in resistance, which may explain why the movement did not plan ahead for Israel’s response to its October 7 attack. That is, October 7 must be understood as Hamas recognizing that, within the impasse of an unrelenting status quo, armed resistance is their core political ideology, whereas governance is contingent.²³

With the absence of an effective and productive regional and international policy climate that would push for alternative paths to containment, Hamas has come to increasingly focus on shattering the status quo with little foresight. This was first seen in its May 2021 offensive against Israel and exemplified in October 7. Although its capacity to resist has been unprecedented, the movement’s leaders had no contingency plans in place for Israel’s retaliation. This shortsightedness could be attributed to Hamas’s dual role as governing authority and resistance movement, choosing to focus on the latter given the limitations on the former. But it is also due to its organizational structure since 2009, which has significantly maximized the influence of regional leaderships over the Executive Committee.

The decision-making mechanisms within Hamas’s tripartite leadership model are notably more intricate than those of the centralized leadership structure followed before 2009. And despite the added benefits to an equitable distribution of power between Gaza, the West Bank, and the shatat that allows for pluralism, the model undermines central cohesion. While Gaza has consistently emerged as the dominant center in the tripartite structure, this has led influential decision-makers at odds with orientations of the central leadership to shift to regional command.²⁴ In other words, the domestic autonomy inherent in the tripartite paradigm usually impedes a unified approach, empowering regional leaders to make decisions aligned with their situational demands. In fact, Gaza’s leadership operated alone on October 7, with leaders in Doha learning of Sinwar’s decision only after the fact.²⁵ Nevertheless, a Hamas leader in Doha explained, “the entire movement is committed to defending their decision.”²⁶

Conclusion

Ultimately, the October 7 attack must be examined with an eye to Hamas’s complex and decentralized decision-making process. It should also be seen as the outcome of a regional and international climate in which Hamas had been erroneously considered subjugated and mainstreamed for more than a decade. With its commitment to resistance underestimated and its capacity for governance devastated, what Israel, Arab states, and the international community have once again failed to recognize is Hamas’s remarkable readiness to adapt, and to do so with full force of resistance.

Hamas is unique as a non-state actor exercising power: it is characterized by a strong desire to integrate into mainstream politics, while simultaneously practicing remarkable agency in subverting it. The failure of regional and international players to grasp this stems from the misconception that Hamas’s ability to practice its agency would decline with further integration through containment. However, October 7 has shown that the more regional and global actors dismiss Hamas as an outlier that needs to be socialized, the more Hamas will respond with force against the status quo.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tarek Hamoud

Tarek Hamoud is an assistant professor at Lusail University in Qatar. He holds a PhD in Palestine Studies from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His research interests focus on Hamas, the Palestinian diaspora, and conflict resolution.

Notes

1 See “Palestinian Unity on Agenda as Hamas, Fatah Leaders Meet in Moscow,” Al Jazeera, February 29, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/palestinian-unity-on-agenda-as-hamas-fatah-leaders-to-meet-in-moscow; Laurie Chen and Nidal Al-Mughrabi, “China to Host Hamas, Fatah for Palestinian Unity Talks,” Reuters, April 26, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/china-host-hamas-fatah-palestinian-unity-talks-2024-04-26/; and “Erdogan Meets Hamas Leader in Turkey, Discusses Efforts for Regional Peace,” Reuters, April 20, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/erdogan-meets-hamas-leader-turkey-discusses-efforts-regional-peace-2024-04-20/; Personal communication with a Hamas official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, May 01, 2024, Doha, Qatar.

2 “Public Opinion Poll No (90),” Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, December 13, 2023, https://pcpsr.org/en/node/963.

3 Tarek Hamoud, “Socialising Hamas: Evaluating the Structural Political Developments in the Islamic Palestinian Resistance Movement as a Ruling Authority between 2006–2017” (PhD diss., University of Exeter, 2023), http://hdl.handle.net/10871/133380.

4 Hamoud, “Socialising Hamas.”

5 The Shura Council operates as the legislative council. The Executive Committee is the highest governing body of Hamas, commonly referred to as the Political Bureau. It consists of eighteen elected members who are equally representative of three regions of Hamas operations: Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora.

6 Hamas was launched in Gaza within the complex decision-making dynamics of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, part of a larger organization that included the Jordanian Brotherhood branch under the name “Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant”—a unified organization agreed upon by the two groups in 1978. The top leadership of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood had been operating in exile since 1963; from 1985, it operated under the name “Palestine Apparatus” as a clandestine group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant. Therefore, Hamas’s top leadership, including in the Shura Council and Executive Committee, was residing abroad from the inception of the movement. The first top leader of Hamas was a relatively unknown individual named Khairy al-Agha, who was based in Saudi Arabia. Following him were Mousa Abu Marzouq and Khaled Mashal, who were also both outside Palestine. Then, Ismail Haniyeh assumed leadership; he lived in Gaza for three years between 2017 and 2020 before relocating to Doha.

7 Hamoud, “Socialising Hamas.”

8 Tarek Hamoud, Palestinian Refugees of Syria in Light of the Syrian Revolution: A Detailed Political and Field Study on the Violations against Palestinian Refugees in Syria between 2011–2012 (London: Palestinian Return Centre, 2012), https://prc.org.uk/en/post/3923/palestinian-refugees-of-syria-in-light-of-the-syrian-revolution-a-detailed-political-and-field-study-on-the-violations-against-palestinian-refugees-in-syria-between.

9 “Maher Jawad Salah,” European Council of Foreign Relations, Mapping Palestinian Politics, accessed May 10, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/maher-jawad-salah/.

10 Rashid Hassan, “Hamas Supports Military Operation for Political Legitimacy in Yemen,” Arab News, March 30, 2015, https://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/725241.

11 David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard, “King Salman of Saudi Arabia Meets with Hamas Leaders,” New York Times, July 17, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/middleeast/king-salman-of-saudi-arabia-meets-with-hamas-leaders.html.

12 Interview by author with Ali Barakeh, Hamas senior official, March 26, 2021, Beirut, Lebanon.

13 Interview by author with Izzat al-Rishq, Hamas Political Bureau member, December 10, 2020, online.

14 “A Document of General Principles and Policies,” Hamas, accessed May 2, 2024, https://palestina-komitee.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/HAMAS-A-Document-of-General-Principles-and-Policies-May-1-2017.pdf.

15 Hamas “A Document of General Principles and Policies,” p. 6, article 25.

16 “Exclusive Interview: Al-Sanwar–We Are Keen Not to Militarize the Gaza Activities” [in Arabic], Al Jazeera Arabic, May 16, 2018, YouTube video, 00:41:23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Rc-yGhxGw.

17 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, “Great March of Return: Scores of People Killed and Injured over One Year,” news release, March 29, 2019, https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/great-march-return-scores-people-killed-and-injured-over-one-year.

18 “Jund Ansar Allah (Gaza),” European Council of Foreign Relations, Mapping Palestinian Politics, accessed May 10, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/jund_ansar_allah_gaza/.

19 Hamoud, “Socialising Hamas.”

20 Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Standford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

21 Sanaa Alswerky, “Palestinian Factions Performed ‘Precisely and Proficiently at All Levels,’” Media Line, May 31, 2021, https://themedialine.org/by-region/palestinian-factions-performed-precisely-and-proficiently-at-all-levels/.

22 Hamoud, “Socialising Hamas.”

23 This decision was influenced by Palestinian power dynamics in the West Bank, which have been particularly determinant for Hamas; they would not accept the same proven failed paradigm of power in Gaza.

24 In the most recent internal elections held in 2021, Hamas regional leadership saw significant figures assume key positions: Yahya Sinwar was elected as the leader in Gaza, Khaled Mashal took charge of the diaspora, and Saleh al-Arouri was in the West Bank. The prominence of these regional leaders underscored the increasing importance and influence of regional leaderships over the central command within Hamas.

25 Summer Said and Rory Jones, “Gaza Chief’s Brutal Calculation: Civilian Bloodshed Will Help Hamas,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-chiefs-brutal-calculation-civilian-bloodshed-will-help-hamas-626720e7.

26 Interview by author with a Hamas leader on the condition of anonymity, April 2, 2024, Doha, Qatar.