What Has Hamas Accomplished?

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants surprised Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people while taking more than 200 as prisoners. It was an impressive tactical success for the group. But as Israeli forces steadily increase their hold on Gaza, leaving much of it in ruins and killing around 19,000 Palestinians, what can Hamas claim it has achieved?

It is helpful to think about what Hamas has accomplished, and where it has failed, by examining three different dimensions: Hamas’s struggle against Israel, the intra-Palestinian arena, and the group’s international position.

Successes Against Israel

Hamas’s terrorist attack brought pain to Israel and shattered its sense of security—both Hamas goals. The attack exposed the Israeli government’s ingrained belief that Hamas lacked both the intention and capabilities to launch a full-scale assault on Israeli soil. This assumption, despite evidence to the contrary, left Israel unprepared for Hamas’s devastating incursion. The resulting intelligence failure and the sheer brutality of the attack, with its mutilations and rape, which was reportedly more successful than Hamas planners anticipated, will leave deep psychological scars on Israeli citizens and force Israel to reevaluate its approach to security moving forward.

Until Oct. 7, and with the exception of sporadic rockets fired into Israel from Gaza that Israel’s missile defenses largely handled, Israelis could largely ignore Hamas and the Palestinians in general. When the occasional crisis flared up, as happened every few years, both sides eventually agreed to go to some version of the status quo ante. From Hamas’s point of view, however, the status quo was slowly suffocating the Palestinian cause, with Israel triumphing on the ground. Each year, settlements expanded in the West Bank, while Gaza at best stagnated, with little hope for its people. Now Israelis must reckon with the unfinished conflict with the Palestinians rather than ignore it.

Israel’s response could also strengthen Hamas. Hamas forced the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of world news, and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza—with its enormous cost to Gaza’s civilians—keeps it there. Israel’s ground offensive plays into Hamas’s narrative of Israeli aggression, alienates Israel from its neighbors, and exacerbates regional tensions. In the longer term, the conflict fosters a new generation of Gazans with grievances against Israel, which could bolster support for Hamas in the future.

Successes Within the Palestinian Community

Hamas has restored its so-called resistance credentials among the Palestinian people. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, it found itself confronted with the day-to-day demands of governing Gaza. This often required avoiding conflict with Israel to ensure that the country’s already considerable economic pressure on Gaza did not increase and that Israel did not conduct destructive military strikes on Gaza. This, in turn, led Hamas to limit its own attacks and at times stay out of the fighting when Israel struck the more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As a result, Hamas found itself in the position of being Israel’s police officer rather than its most-feared enemy, angering its military wing and leading to criticism from militant circles that the group was slowly abandoning armed struggle.

The devastatingly effective Hamas attacks increased support for resistance in general and restored Hamas’s credentials in particular. Although we do not yet have robust polling from the post-Oct. 7 period, limited polling of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as well as anecdotal reporting indicate strong support for the Oct. 7 attacks and suggest that the Israeli response in both Gaza and the West Bank has infuriated many Palestinians who are not otherwise Hamas supporters. Israel is also releasing Palestinian prisoners, who are greeted as heroes in the West Bank, in exchange for Israelis whom Hamas captured on Oct. 7—a clear victory for Hamas, which can argue that its attacks, not negotiations by the rival Palestinian Authority (PA), are what led to the prisoners’ freedom.

All this comes at the expense of the PA and Palestinians who favor peace. By not fighting, and even cracking down on anti-Israel demonstrations, the PA looks cowardly relative to Hamas. The Israeli response that Hamas provoked also discredits those who say that Israel can be a partner for peace.

International Successes

For years, the Palestinian-Israeli dispute seemed to be on the world’s back burner. The United States focused on China and on Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Arab governments were content to largely ignore the issue despite the occasional lip service. Now the Palestinian issue is front and center.

Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’s attack furthers Iranian narratives painting Israel as an occupying power brutally repressing Palestinians. The continued conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis in Gaza undermine Israel’s image in the region and bolster support for those, like Iran, who oppose it. Although Iran denies direct involvement in the attack, the success of the operation may embolden Iran to invest even more heavily in its “axis of resistance,” a regional network of militant groups aiming to destabilize Israel and its allies.

The attack also temporarily halted U.S.-backed normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If Riyadh recognized Israel, it would lay the foundations for other Arab nations to do the same. This would leave Hamas increasingly isolated and with few partners to champion the Palestinian cause. Following the attack, however, Saudi leaders distanced themselves from Israel and issued statements supporting Palestinians. These actions were largely to appease the country’s overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian population after months of negotiations with Israel, rather than a pro-Palestinian turn in Saudi policy. However, they suggest that the political cost to Riyadh of normalization with Israel, always high, is now far higher.

Beyond the Middle East, the war has generated considerable support for the Palestinian cause. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have occurred throughout Europe. With few exceptions, the global south has embraced the Palestinian narrative, portraying the war as one of a powerful country attacking a defenseless population and lamenting what many see as the West’s hypocrisy in defending Ukraine while ignoring the rights of the Palestinians.

Hamas can even claim a few wins in the United States. Although most Republicans and U.S. President Joe Biden have embraced Israel, the broader Democratic Party is divided, with younger Democrats in particular critical of Israel. Although none support Hamas, some Democratic lawmakers have called for a cease-fire, restrictions on U.S. military aid, and other steps that go against Israeli policies.

The Price of Success

Whatever Hamas’s gains, they come at a huge cost. Both Hamas’s leadership and its military apparatus are likely to be degraded by the Israeli military campaign: Israel claims it has killed dozens of commanders and over 7,000 Hamas fighters. Moreover, Israel is likely to continue an assassination campaign against Hamas leaders for years or even decades to come.

Ordinary people in Gaza, of course, will pay the highest price. Many of the around 19,000 dead are children, and the devastation of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of much of its population will create an enduring crisis even if a cease-fire happens soon. Gazans will need to rebuild, with at best limited world assistance for doing so.

This pain, in turn, may inflict the highest price for Hamas: the loss of support among ordinary Palestinians. As the suffering of war fades while the loss and destruction endure, Palestinians may see Hamas as a dangerous organization rather than a heroic one. For that to be true, however, there need to be credible options for negotiations and other peaceful ways for Palestinians to achieve statehood and other goals. Only this will truly discredit violent resistance as the best option for Palestinians.