In recent years, two narratives developed in Israel regarding its face-off against the Hamas movement. According to the first one, Hamas is a terrorist organization and, therefore, classic anti-terror tactics must be used to fight it. The second narrative, formed after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, holds that Israel must create a balance of military and economic terror against the organization and erect clear red lines. Only if those lines are crossed by Hamas should Israel begin action to destroy the organization.

In general, Israeli governments adopted relatively restrained policies of containment vis-a-vis Hamas. The reason for this was the assumption that should the Hamas regime be overturned militarily or collapse economically, the alternative regimes in the Gaza Strip could be much worse and much more dangerous to the security of Israel. Operation Protective Edge already proves that both narratives are no longer applicable.

The Hamas movement was founded six days after the eruption of the first intifada at the end of 1987. The first terrorist acts of the military wing were perpetrated by the “101 Unit” established in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Its people abducted and murdered Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers Avi Sasportas (February 1989) and Ilan Saadon (May 1989), and concealed their bodies.

Hamas’ terrorist acts became more deadly and murderous after the signing of the Oslo Accord between Israel and the PLO in 1993. Hamas attempted to subvert the agreement with terrorist attacks by suicide bombers. The height of suicide terrorism was reached in the second intifada in 2000, when the State of Israel was inundated by a wave of attacks that were directed mainly against civilians. Hamas’ military wing then adopted the suicide attack model of Hezbollah. Small, compartmentalized terror cells acted independently to plan attacks and send terrorists to blow themselves up in shopping centers and buses in Israel’s major cities.