Hamas Leader Tells the NYT What Their Goal Is

In the month since Hamas' surprise attack on Israel, the New York Times has spoken with Hamas leadership about what their objective was in launching it. Chaos and carnage was the point, they say. "Hamas' goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such," senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya told the Times in Doha, Qatar. "This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers. It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation."

Amid fears that the Palestinian cause was being swept into the shadows, al-Hayya said Hamas needed to "change the entire equation and not just have a clash. We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm." And as a Hamas media adviser told the Times, the hope is that chaos persists. "I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us," Taher El-Nounou said.

In their article, Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib delve into that reasoning and how the attack took shape—the plan was closely held "by a tight circle of commanders," and its success "broke a long-standing tension within Hamas about the group's identity and purpose," they write: that its priority was not to govern, but to function as an armed force that could obliterate Israel. Their piece also dives into the background of Hamas' leader, Yahya Sinwar, and how he was shaped by more than 20 years spent in Israeli prisons. (Read the full story here.)