The Israeli government has been involved in assisting or empowering the Palestinian political and military organization Hamas at various points in its history. This support continued during and in spite of active military hostilities between the two sides.
During the 1970s, Israel began providing support to Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader who controlled a network of Islamic schools, mosques, and clubs, in order to weaken the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization. It continued to encourage the expansion of Yassin's network during the first year and a half of the First Intifada, as the network re-organised into Hamas. This support lasted until 1989, when Hamas launched its first attacks on Israelis, leading to a significant crackdown against the organisation. Multiple Israeli officials have acknowledged Israel's role in strengthening Yassin's network.
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Israeli officials encouraged Qatar to support Hamas, especially by approving the transfer of large sums of financial aid by Qatar to the organization. Several Israeli intelligence officials have cited Qatari money as a contributing factor to the success of Hamas in leading the October 7 attacks in 2023; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the notion that Israel strategically propped up Hamas "ridiculous", and stated that Qatar's aid transfers to the Hamas government had been approved for humanitarian reasons.
In her 1996 book Islamic Politics in Palestine, Beverley Milton-Edwards, former Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast, observed that Israeli financial and policy support for Islamic organizations—particularly al-Mujama al-Islami in Gaza—served as a classic "divide-and-rule" strategy. By encouraging conservative Islamic movements as a counterweight to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israeli authorities sought to weaken progressive nationalist appeals; however, turning a blind eye to these activities ultimately nurtured a movement that later turned against its benefactor.Milton-Edwards, Beverley (1996). Islamic Politics in Palestine. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 103–104.
History 1970s–1980s During the 1970s and 1980s, one of the Israeli government's main goals in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was the defeat of the secular and leftist Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), including through military actions such as the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Internationally, the Israeli government aimed to contain the influence of Arab nationalist and Arab socialist governments, such as by the French-British invasion of Egypt during the mid-1950s Suez Canal Crisis, to the royalists in the 1960s North Yemen civil war, and to the Islamic Republic of Iran during the 1980s Iran–Iraq war. It also refused to negotiate with the PLO, instead carrying out any negotiations over the future of the occupied Palestinian territories via Arab state intermediaries, especially Jordan, and Egypt following the late 1970s Camp David Accords. Within the occupied territories, the Israeli government took a range of measures to repress Palestinian nationalism and suppress PLO-linked movements, including banning the National Guidance Committee and the dismissing elected Palestinian city councils. It also sought to encourage the growth of conservative and religious groups, which were frequently hostile to the PLO and assumed to be more cooperative with Israeli officials. The most prominent of these groups was the Palestinian Village Leagues.
Another conservative, religious, and anti-PLO movement that was encouraged by Israeli officials was that of Islamist politician Ahmed Yassin, a Muslim Brotherhood member who ran a network of mosques, clubs, and schools in the Gaza Strip through his Mujama al-Islamiya charity. During the 1970s and 1980s, Israel granted licences and support to Yassin so that he could build and expand his network. American research Jonathan Schanzer wrote that "by the late 1970s, the Israelis believed that they had found Fatah's Achilles' heel ... Fatah had become anxious over the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza," saying that the Israelis subsequently "made the ill-fated decision to permit the Brotherhood to operate with relatively little oversight" so that it would undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Israeli Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, who served as the Israeli military governor in Gaza during the early 1980s, admitted to providing financial assistance to Mujama al-Islamiya, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. In March 1981, Segev told The New York Times that "the Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques." Other former Israeli officials have also openly acknowledged Israel's role in providing funding and assistance to Yassin's network as a means of undermining the secular, left-wing Palestinian factions that made up the PLO. Former Israeli Civil Administration director Efraim Sneh stated in 1992 that "we saw the fundamentalists mainly as an unthreatening social force aiming to improve the bad conditions and standards of living of the Palestinians ... We know now that we must make a distinction between Hamas, with whom we have nothing in common, and the moderates, mainstream secular elements among the Palestinians." In 2018, historian Uri Milstein quoted Yitzhak Mordechai, who served as head of the Southern Command from 1986 to 1989, as saying that "I was very familiar with Gaza from my previous positions. But when I took charge of the Southern Command, I was shocked by the number of mosques that had been recently constructed in Gaza. As it turned out, Israel’s strategists had been supportive of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s charitable organization."
Several incidents occurred during the 1980s after which leftist Palestinians accused the Israeli government of supporting Islamist fundamentalists. One such incident was the January 1980 Mujama al-Islamiya riot, after which the Palestine Red Crescent Society accused the Israeli military of "complicity" in the riot.Filiu, Jean-Pierre. Gaza: A History. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2024. Another was the conflict between Mujama al-Islamiya and the PLO for control over the Islamic University of Gaza. In February 1981, seven of the thirteen members of the university's senate were fired by the Israeli Military Governorate, allegedly at Mujama al-Islamiya's request.Milton-Edwards, Beverely & Stephen Farrell. Hamas: The Quest for Power. John Wiley & Sons, 2024. Page 42–45.
First Intifada (1987–1989) After the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Yassin's network re-organised itself into an armed organisation: Hamas, issuing an extremist founding charter in 1988. However, until Hamas carried out its first attacks in the spring of 1989, the Israeli government continued to encourage its growth. John Kifner of The New York Times wrote in September 1988 that "Israeli authorities have taken no direct action against Hamas despite repeated crackdowns and roundups" on Unified National Leadership of the Uprising and PLO factions, quoting an anonymous Western diplomat as saying that "It certainly is remarkable with all these arrests, that someone like Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who just goes on saying the most awful things about Jews, isn't touched." In May 1989, Gil Sedan and Hugh Orgel of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote that, during the first year and a half of the First Intifada, "the official attitude toward Hamas and its leadership has been more or less tolerant. Senior figures in the defence establishment have stated privately that two considerations supported the policy of encouraging Hamas' influence among the Palestinians. One was the notion that granting a firm public standing to the Islamic elements, even religious and political extremists, would offset the influence of violent groups, such as the Islamic Jihad. The other consideration was to strengthen the hand of PLO opponents within the Palestinian population."
This support lasted until 1989, when Hamas launched its first attacks on Israelis, leading to a significant crackdown against the organisation.
Oslo era (1993–2010s) After a visit to Israel from Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz and Turkish lawmaker in 1998, İşbaşaran later revealed that Netanyahu suggested Turkey support Hamas. Netanyahu reportedly said, "Hamas also has bank accounts for aid in banks, we help them too, you [Turkey] can help too."
In a cable leaked by WikiLeaks in 2010, Amos Yadlin, former general of the Israeli Air Force and then head of Military Intelligence, said in 2007 that Israel would be "happy" if Hamas take over Gaza and regarded it as a positive step, "because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state." An Israeli financial investigative team called "Task Force Harpoon" in 2015 discovered a network of businesses and investments that were owned and controlled by Hamas. The terrorism finance task force briefed the government, but no actions were taken in either Israel or Washington until seven years later.
In an exclusive interview published by Ynetnews on May 7, 2008, then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak reflected on historical missteps in regional policy, stating: "I hate to remind you that 20 years ago we supported the induction of Hamas, that we marched into Lebanon to the sounds of the Lebanese people cheering and it was our being there that created Hizbullah."
Israeli backing of Qatar sending millions of dollars to Gaza In a May 2024 interview with MBC Masr, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Head of Hamas’ Foreign Relations Office, stated that the organization’s presence in Doha was established at the request of the United States following a rift between Hamas leadership and Jordanian authorities.Abu Marzouk, Mousa (May 5, 2024). "موسى أبو مرزوق يكشف تفاصيل مفاوضات الهدنة" [Mousa Abu Marzouk reveals details of the truce negotiations] (Video) (in Arabic). MBC Masr. Retrieved September 3, 2026 – via Facebook.
According to a March 2019 report by The Jerusalem Post, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his decision to permit financial transfers into Gaza during a private Likud faction meeting, framing the policy as part of a broader strategy to maintain a political separation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu argued that “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” transferring the funds to Gaza, asserting that preserving the division between the West Bank and Gaza serves to impede the establishment of a Palestinian state. Yossi Kuperwasser, an Israeli intelligence and security expert, said that Qatari's support for Hamas could help deter the group from war by improving life in Gaza. Kuperwasser stated in 2015: "We believe that better conditions in Gaza would lessen the incentive of Hamas and the population to go again to a war. So in a way, it is helping the deterrence. But the purpose is to improve the conditions of the people of Gaza and enable them to live a respectable life."