One year into the war on Gaza, Palestine and the issue of Palestinian self-determination is back on the international agenda. The cost, however, has been enormously high. Israel’s conduct of the war has left tens of thousands of Gazans killed, many more injured and displaced, and the entire civilian infrastructure destroyed, fueling accusations of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and accusations of genocide before the International Court of Justice.
If responsibility for returning the Palestinian cause to the spotlight goes to Hamas, so too does a considerable share of the blame for the humanitarian costs of the past year. The Israeli response to the group’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, spiraled beyond anyone’s initial expectations, not least Hamas. How the war will end remains an open question, as does any attempt to predict in what state Hamas will emerge from it. That is even more the case following the killing last week of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, amid an ongoing intensification of Israeli strikes there.
A lot will depend on Israel’s and Hamas’ balance sheets of losses and gains once the fighting ends. But Hamas’ future fortunes will be only partially determined by the movement’s military, political and administrative capacity after the war. More important will be the positions of Israel, the U.S. and regional players, which will ultimately have a major role in shaping the movement’s future.
Since taking full control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas strived to consolidate its rule in terms of both security and governance, while countering Israeli efforts to weaken and contain the movement. Those Israeli efforts included an almost total air, sea and land blockade on the Gaza, with the exception of tightly controlled deliveries of humanitarian aid; successive wars on Hamas in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021 designed to keep its military capabilities within limits—a strategy dubbed “mowing the lawn”; and policies designed to exacerbate hardships among the Gazan population in order to provoke rebellion against Hamas.
Though these strategies achieved partial successes, they ultimately failed to topple Hamas in Gaza. Not only did the group remain in power, but it strengthened its military capabilities, improved its governing bureaucracy, enhanced its political presence within the Palestinian political scene and deepened its regional alliances.
Now, after a year of war, Hamas has been significantly weakened in the areas of military command and control, governance and political leadership, having lost not only Sinwar, but also Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s political leader outside Gaza who was assassinated by the Israelis in Tehran in July. However, the movement is still functioning as a unified organization inside and outside Gaza, with a presence in the West Bank as well as an otherwise intact political leadership outside Palestine. This is all the more remarkable, given the fact that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, supported by the massive and never-ending supply of U.S. arms and intelligence support, has been one of the most intense in history, with a combined explosive power and magnitude exceeding that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Beyond merely surviving the war, however, another key concern for Hamas is its public support within Gaza, the West Bank and abroad. The group has always been vigilant about this issue, and throughout its rule in Gaza has closely monitored public sentiment for this reason. In that time, two primary dynamics have largely driven fluctuations in levels of support for Hamas: its stance as a movement of resistance against Israel and its performance as a governing party. At times, these dynamics have worked at cross purposes, with resistance boosting popular support and governance performance undermining it.
Any political formula that intends to address Palestinians’ medium- or long-term political future will require some form of consensus and/or elected body. And when that moment comes, Hamas will be there.
This resistance-governance equation also seems to have shaped Hamas’ popularity during the current war. While many Palestinians have admired the group’s steadfastness and military performance against the mightiest armed force in the Middle East, they criticized its failure to prepare for the war’s impact on Palestinian civilians, including protecting them from the Israeli onslaught and ensuring the provision of adequate humanitarian aid. Hamas has strived over the past year to remain the official administrative agent for the population in Gaza, despite the relentless Israeli military campaign to destroy its civilian organs and structure. As a result, it is also the responsible party “of record.” Tellingly, even now, people in Gaza continue to direct their requests for aid, as well as their anger and complaints, to Hamas’ civilian officials and cadres there.
Clearly, then, Hamas is not finished as a functioning entity, and while the movement has certainly been seriously weakened on all fronts, Israel will be unable to eradicate it completely. Hamas’ multifaceted nature and the extent to which it is socially and religiously embedded within the Palestinian population will provide it with space and oxygen for rebuilding and reorienting after the war ends. Even if Hamas ends up totally neutralized in terms of its military capabilities, it will maintain its political and social presence and standing among the Palestinians. Any political formula that intends to address Palestinians’ medium- or long-term political future, whether in Gaza alone or combined with the West Bank, will require some form of Palestinian consensus and/or elected body. And when that moment comes, Hamas will be there, directly or indirectly.
While any prediction under the current circumstances is hazardous, there are three likely scenarios for Hamas’ postwar prospects, with a combination of elements of all three also possible. The first is a disarmed movement. Hamas is known for being simultaneously a political-religious movement and a national resistance party, with either of the two aspects taking the lead depending on the given context and circumstances. If Hamas’ resistance side is muted after the war, whether by force or by choice, the movement would most likely refocus its energies on the political-religious side, along with rebuilding its organizational structure.
In this case, one possible version of Hamas would be as a nonmilitary organization that functions as a political-religious movement similar to other Islamist parties in the region. Areas of activism would include participation in elections and political processes, engagement in nonviolent and popular resistance against Israel, and efforts to increase membership. A useful comparison would be to Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, which operates politically and won the biggest share of that country’s most recent parliamentary elections in September, with around a quarter of the seats. Thus, once recovered, a postwar Hamas or its new form would remain a big part of the Palestinian political scene and an unavoidable force in any future elections.
The second scenario would be the destruction of the movement and the emergence of smaller and most likely more radical splinter groups. This would be the bleakest scenario for everyone, as it could turn Gaza into an arena of endless chaos. In this case, conflict and insecurity would not only replace Hamas’ tight—and, from a security perspective, successful—prewar rule in Gaza itself, but could easily spill over regionally, including to the West Bank, Israel, Egypt and Jordan.
A third possible scenario would be a weakened but not destroyed Hamas that accepts a power-sharing formula in postwar Gaza. The carrot part of this scenario—allowing Hamas to be part of Gaza’s future administration—would guarantee that the group would not adopt a spoiler role. This would be no small prize, as even a drastically weakened and militarily neutralized Hamas could effectively mobilize its remnants to make the life of any ruling body in Gaza unbearable.
Again, any postwar scenario for Hamas and the Palestinians will depend on the way the war ends, as well as on the seriousness with which international players—primarily the U.S.—engage in a meaningful effort toward establishing a Palestinian state, which remains the only just and lasting solution for the Palestinian cause. To a large degree, Hamas’ support among the Palestinian population ebbs and flows in direct relation to the availability or lack of other options.
The failure over more than three decades of the “peace process”; the deepening of the Israeli occupation, along with annexations and the rise of an apartheid system; the sense of abandonment and humiliation by the international community; and the mounting economic hardships in both Gaza and the West Bank: All of these factors have driven many Palestinians to frustration, despair and anger—and ultimately to Hamas. If this continues to be the reality engulfing Palestinians, then the reemergence of Hamas, or of a more radical replacement that takes up the same flag, will not take long.
Khaled Hroub is a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Northwestern University/Qatar and the author of two books on Hamas.