The 20 months of efforts by Hamas to enter the political scene, establish a government, and halt martyrdom-seeking operations failed due to interference by internal, regional, and extra-regional forces.

The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas won 75 of the 132 seats in the January 2006 parliamentary election and established a government in line with the Palestinian Constitution.
Following this victory, the defeated Fatah movement, which is led by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), started attempting to obstruct the administrative and economic activities of the Hamas government.
Although Fatah is mostly composed of secular pan-Arabists, it should still respect the majority’s choice. However, the movement’s totalitarian practices divided the Palestinians into supporters and opponents of the Hamas government.
Meanwhile, the economic blockade has made life difficult for the residents of the small, deprived Gaza Strip region, which is considered Hamas country.
Along with Fatah, the Zionist regime is also playing a role in the siege of Gaza.
Since Gaza residents’ resistance to the economic pressure and provocations of Fatah undermined the policies of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he then tried a new political maneuver.
In an unconventional and unconstitutional action, he dismissed the democratically elected Hamas government and appointed Salaam Fayyad as prime minister.
This action brought the Hamas-Fatah dispute to a climax, leading to clashes in which 200 people were killed.
The Zionist regime simultaneously expanded it assaults on Gaza, which led to the martyrdom of dozens of Hamas supporters.
Some regional Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia had previously arranged meetings to bring the leaders of the two movements together, which resulted in the signing of the Mecca agreement.
Yet this agreement did not help reduce the discord between Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas, and hence the confrontation continued.
Moreover, following the victory of Hamas in the parliamentary election, the European Union and the United States, which are obliged to provide $500 million of assistance to the Palestinian nation annually according to the Oslo Accords, cut off the funding.
Thus, the increased pressure by regional and extra-regional powers, the Israeli army’s continuous attacks on the citizens of Gaza, and Fatah’s relentless obstructionism compelled Hamas leaders to revise their political and military strategies.
In recent weeks, Gaza’s popular resistance committees affiliated to the Hamas movement resumed rocket attacks on Israeli military bases as a preemptive measure. The latest action was the attack on Israel’s Zakim military base in which more than 70 soldiers were wounded.
The rising tide of violence in the occupied territories and the efforts to isolate Hamas will surely cause the Islamic movement to revise its strategy.
Many Arab and European countries had promised to cooperate with Hamas if it halted martyrdom-seeking operations against Israel’s military bases, and Hamas complied with the request.
But unfortunately, none of those countries encouraged the efforts of Hamas to enter the political arena but rather supported Fatah in its confrontation with Hamas.
Now it seems that Hamas is returning to the military approach in order to regain popularity.
This will surely cause a new crisis in the occupied territories that may spin out of control.