What is the Palestinian group Hamas and what's left two years after Oct. 7?

It triggered an Israel-Hamas war that has seen the heaviest Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 75 years of conflict. Israel has drawn widespread condemnation over its military conduct in Gaza, where more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, according to local health authorities on September 24, 2025, and famine has spread.

Hamas has acknowledged the death of some of its military leaders but has not disclosed the number of its fighters killed.

WHAT IS HAMAS?

Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase "Islamic Resistance Movement". It was founded in 1987 by the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.

It is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union, Britain, Canada and Japan. Hamas characterizes its armed activities as resistance against Israeli occupation.

WHAT DOES HAMAS WANT TO ACHIEVE?

Hamas' 1988 founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, although Hamas leaders have at times offered a long-term truce, or Hudna in Arabic, with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state on all Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel regards this as a ruse.

The group refuses to recognise Israel, and violently opposed the Oslo peace accords negotiated by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the mid-1990s.

While Hamas wants all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, which includes the modern state of Israel as well as the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in 2017 it said it might accept a transitional solution.

In a document issued on May 1 that year by its outgoing chief Khaled Meshaal, Hamas said it agreed to a transitional Palestinian state within frontiers pre-dating the 1967 war, although it still opposed recognizing Israel's right to exist or ceding any Palestinian rights. One of Hamas' most senior officials, Mahmoud al-Zahar, later said the document was not a substitute for its founding charter.

HOW DID HAMAS COME TO POWER?

Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 – the first time it took part, and the last time they were held. It took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a brief civil war in which it routed the western-backed Palestinian forces loyal to Hamas's domestic rival President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas is based in the West Bank and heads the more secular Palestine Liberation Organization and the PLO's dominant party, Fatah.

Abbas described the Gaza takeover as a coup. Hamas accused Abbas of conspiring against it.

Since then, there have been numerous rounds of conflict with Israel, often involving Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel and Israeli airstrikes and bombardment of Gaza.

WHO ARE THE HAMAS FIGHTERS?

Hamas' armed wing is called the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades. It has sent gunmen and suicide bombers into Israel and fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells.

The military wing is highly secretive and is run by Mohammed Deif, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

It has bases all over Gaza, but also members across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and farther afield. Many of its leaders and fighters are now thought to be fighting Israel's ground forces in Gaza from an underground network of tunnels.

WHO IS FUNDING HAMAS?

Although a Sunni Muslim group, Hamas is part of a regional alliance comprising Iran, Syria and the Shi'ite Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which all broadly oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel.

While its power base is in Gaza, Hamas also has supporters across the Palestinian territories, and it has leaders spread across the Middle East in countries including Qatar.

It has received money, weapons and training from Iran, but also has a global fund-raising network, which it uses to funnel support from charities and friendly nations, passing cash through Gaza tunnels or using cryptocurrencies to bypass international sanctions, according to experts and officials.

The U.S. State Department said Hamas raises funds in other Gulf countries and gets donations from Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charities.

Matthew Levitt, a former U.S. official specialised in counterterrorism, estimated that the bulk of Hamas' budget of more than $300 million came from taxes on business, as well as from countries including Iran and Qatar or charities.

A Qatari official said late last year that Qatar's aid to Gaza was delivered directly to families needing essentials such as food and medicine, under strict guarantees to ensure it reaches affected civilians. The distribution is coordinated with Israel, U.N. agencies and the United States, the official said.

HAMAS LEADERS KILLED BY ISRAEL

Here are some of the top Hamas figures killed by Israel and those who remain alive almost two years since the start of the Gaza war, which began when the group attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023:

DEAD

Israel carried out an attack on Hamas leadership based in Qatar on September 9, 2025.

Those killed included son of exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, Hammam Al-Hayya, along with Hamas security members Jihad Labbad, Abdullah Abdul Wahid, Moamen Hassouna and Ahmed Abdul Malik.

MOHAMMAD SINWAR

Mohammad Sinwar was a veteran Hamas commander and its overall military chief in Gaza at the time Israel said it killed him in May.

Sinwar had been elevated to Hamas' top ranks after Israel killed his older brother, Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the October 7 attacks, in 2024.

YAHYA SINWAR

The Israeli military killed Yahya Sinwar in Gaza in October, 2024, just over a year after the October 7 attacks he helped to plan. Sinwar had been Israel's most wanted enemy at the time, and was widely assumed to be running the war in Gaza. He became Hamas chief after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran in July 2024.

ISMAIL HANIYEH

Haniyeh was assassinated in July 2024 during a visit to Tehran. He had been Hamas leader since 2017. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said he was killed by a short-range projectile. The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that the explosion which killed him was a bomb that was covertly smuggled into the guesthouse where he was staying. Israel's defence minister confirmed in December it had killed him.

MOHAMMED DEIF

Israel's military said Deif, commander of Hamas' military wing, was killed after fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Younis in July 2024. Deif, who had survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, was believed to have been another October 7 mastermind.

MARWAN ISSA

Deputy Hamas military commander Marwan Issa was killed in an Israeli strike in March 2024, the Israeli military said. He had been at the top of Israel's most-wanted list alongside Deif and Sinwar.

SALEH AL-AROURI

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed by an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburbs in January 2024. He was a founder of Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades.

ALIVE

IZZ AL-DIN AL-HADDAD

Haddad became the most senior Hamas military leader in the Gaza Strip after Mohammad Sinwar's death. Israel believes he is one of the masterminds of October 7, and has identified him among its most wanted. He is believed to be based in northern Gaza, the focal point of a new Israeli offensive.

KHALIL AL-HAYYA

Based in Qatar, Hayya has been widely seen as Hamas' most influential figure abroad since Haniyeh's death. He is part of a five-man leadership council that has led Hamas since Yahya Sinwar's death. Hailing from the Gaza Strip, he has lost several close relatives - including his eldest son - to Israeli strikes.

KHALED MESHAAL

One of Hamas' most recognisable politicians Meshaal, 68, led the group between 2004 and 2017. He became known around the world in 1997 when Israeli agents injected him with poison in Jordan in a botched assassination attempt. He is now based in Qatar, serving on the five-man leadership council.

MOHAMMAD DARWISH

Also based in Qatar, Mohammad Darwish was a little known figure until the Haniyeh assassination, since when he has risen to prominence. He is believed to be the chairman of the Hamas Shoura Council, the highest decision-making body. He is nominally the head of the five-man leadership council.

NIZAR AWADALLAH

Nizar Awadallah, a veteran Hamas leader, was a confidant of the group's co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and has taken several key posts within the group including in its armed wing.

Hamas sources said Awadallah led Hamas in Gaza in 2006 in the wake of the group's victory in a parliamentary election. He has made no public appearance or comments since the October 7 attacks, and is believed to have left Gaza before the war began.

ZAHER JABBARIN

Jabbarin is the head of Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a role he performs from Qatar. He is the fifth member of the leadership council. He is in charge of the portfolio of Palestinian prisoners and part of the negotiating team.

Israel arrested him in 1993 and he was sentenced to life, before he was freed in 2011 as part of a Hamas-Israel swap deal under which Israel released over 1,000 Palestinians in return for Gilad Shalit, a soldier Hamas captured in 2006.

Born in 1968 in Salfit in the West Bank, he co-founded the first cells of the Hamas armed wing in the West Bank in 1991.