Who are Hamas?

Hamas takes its name from the Arabic initials for the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Branded a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, it is seen by its supporters as a legitimate fighting force defending Palestinians from a brutal military occupation.
It is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation, formed in 1987 at the beginning of the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
The group's short-term aim has been to drive Israeli forces from the occupied territories. To achieve this it has launched attacks on Israeli troops and settlers in the Palestinian territories and against civilians in Israel.

Profile: Mahmoud Zahhar Profile: Ismail Haniya

It also has a long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state on all of historic Palestine - most of which has been contained within Israel's borders since its creation in 1948.
For years the organisation was divided into two main spheres of operation:

• social programmes like building schools, hospitals and religious institutions
  
• militant operations carried out by Hamas' underground Iss al-Din Qassam Brigades.
  

But it became increasingly involved in Palestinian factional politics, both in the occupied territories and with a political branch in exile.
One of its leaders-in-exile, Khalid Meshaal, was the target of a bungled Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997.
King Hussein was outraged by Israel's action and was only placated when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released Hamas's jailed spiritual leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
While King Hussein tolerated Hamas's presence, his successor King Abdullah II had the group's headquarters closed down and senior figures expelled to Qatar.
Hamas has remained outside the main Palestinian political structure of the PLO, but it took part in - and won - Palestinian Authority (PA) legislative elections in the occupied territories in 2006