Offers of negotiation by Hamas were made to save civilians from both sides of the targeted killing, but met with categorical refusal from Israel on the grounds that it would ‘do no business with terrorists’. Although Hamas came into being in 1987, its trademark suicide attacks did not begin until 1994. The first wave of these attacks was carried out in retaliation for the Hebron massacre, in which a fanatic Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshipers in the Abrahimic Mosque in February 1994. Hamas vowed to take revenge and it did so by blowing up Israeli soldiers, settlers and civilians in the hearts of Israeli cities. At that point Hamas discovered the spectacular effect this kind of attack had on the public imagination, and embraced it. Realizing that targeting civilians deliberately can be a dangerous strategy, Hamas has been careful to link any suicide bombing that it has undertaken to specific Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians.
Prior to 1994 Hamas’s policies were clear in attacking only ‘legitimate military targets’. The major shift to targeting civilians, even with the justification of only retaliating for a civilian killing with another civilian killing, has nonetheless incurred heavy costs to Hamas. Defying Israel’s violent retaliation against Hamas, epitomized by the Israeli strategy of assassinating its leaders, the movement has geared up its use of suicide operations over the years. It had realized that although these operations rallied the international community against Hamas, and distorted somewhat the image of the legitimate Palestinian struggle, they provided the movement with an aura of strength and popularity amongst the Palestinian people themselves. The Palestinians started to look at Hamas as an organization capable of inflicting damage on the Israelis and taking revenge for any Israeli killing of Palestinians.
Lacking any effective means to defend its civilians against these suicide attacks, Israel was devastated by them. The horror of a potential bombing that could take place in any bus, shopping centre or restaurant brought Israeli cities at certain periods of time nearly to complete state of terrifying suspense. Israel not only mobilized its military might to stamp out Hamas’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but also brought to bear all sorts of pressure, including external pressure. On more than one occasion Israel hinted, via unofficial mediators, that it was ready to talk to Hamas with a view to stopping these attacks. However Hamas adhered to its declared position: ‘Stop killing Palestinian civilians and we will stop killing Israeli civilians.’ Israel repeatedly refused this offer.
Sheikh Yasin succinctly articulated Hamas’s policy on suicide bombings in September 2003. When asked whether the attacks would continue irrespective of circumstances, he replied in the negative, and explained, ‘If we perceive that the atmosphere favors such a decision, we stop. And when we perceive that the atmosphere has changed, we carry on.’ In general, the wider the gap between the peace strategy and the attainment of Palestinian rights, the more room Hamas has to pursue its resistance strategy.
Politically and strategically, Hamas became aware that, at certain junctures, using suicide attacks had become its strongest card in the conflict with Israel, as well as with its rivalry with the Palestinian Authority and its Fatah movement. Relinquishing this card would only be considered if there was really a possibility of a worthy return. Continuous Israeli military efforts, coupled with repetitive crackdowns on Hamas by the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, failed to destroy Hamas’s capability in undertaking these attacks. Political and diplomatic pressures were also exerted on Hamas by Egypt, Jordan and the European Union in order to compel the movement to stop these attacks, at least temporarily. In finding itself on the receiving end of much high condemnation for the suicide bombings both regionally and internationally, Hamas discovered that the exact same attention regionally and internationally was also furnishing them with further leverage.
On several occasions Hamas has shown flexibility in temporarily halting its attacks, either to avoid straying from a collective agreement among Palestinian factions, or to prove its pragmatism. In late 1995 it stopped suicide attacks for months, only to resume them after the Israeli assassination of one of its military leaders, Yahya Ayyash. Similar halt–resume ‘tacit agreements’ took place during the second intifada (2000–05) for short periods of time, but all failed because Israel would waste no opportunity to assassinate one Hamas leader after another.
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