PNN – The Hamas movement, by publishing a booklet at the end of 2025, outlined the dimensions and motivations of the Al-Aqsa Storm operation, the attritional course of the Gaza war, the failure of the political path, and the current priorities of the resistance.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), coinciding with the end of 2025 and after more than two years since the Al-Aqsa Storm operation, detailed in a booklet the particulars of this operation, its motivations and priorities for carrying it out, as well as the attritional course of the war in Gaza over two years and Hamas’s current stage priorities amidst the continuation of aggressions and violations of ceasefire foundations by the Zionist regime.
The Al Jazeera network, in a report referring to the chapter headings of this booklet, wrote that Hamas’s goal in publishing it is to explain its foundations regarding the Al-Aqsa Storm operation in confrontation with Zionist and Western narratives, as well as critical Arab and Palestinian narratives.
This booklet links the foundations and roots of the October 7 events to the revolutions of 1920 and the occupation of Palestine in 1948, and introduces Al-Aqsa Storm as an accumulated result of a long historical path of mandate, occupation, displacement, and the policy of suppressing Palestinian existence.
According to Hamas’s writing, with the rise of successive far-right cabinets in Israel, the acceleration of settlement and Judaization projects in Jerusalem and the West Bank reached its peak, and the number of settlers in the West Bank increased from 280,000 in 1993 after the signing of the Oslo Accords to 950,000 settlers in 2023.
While focusing on the failure of the “political settlement” process of the Palestinian issue, this booklet introduced the Zionist regime as responsible for violating the Oslo Accords and in this regard referenced statements by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, opposing an independent Palestinian state, which blocked the horizon for a political settlement of the Palestinian issue and solidified the logic of confrontation.
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Hamas went on to describe internal developments in the occupied territories from late 2022, coinciding with the rise of the Likud and Talmudic Zionism coalition and the assignment of sensitive positions to extremist figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, attributing it to the Zionists’ effort to impose new realities in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a prelude to eliminating the Palestinian issue.
The booklet then elaborated on the conditions prevailing in Gaza, writing that the long-term blockade, policies of collective punishment and comprehensive restrictions on people’s daily lives, as well as security information regarding the Shabak plan to target Hamas leadership one week before Al-Aqsa Storm, solidified the idea that Al-Aqsa Storm was a preemptive operation against an imminent Israeli attack.
Hamas also addressed the file of Palestinian prisoners, whose number was 5,000 before Al-Aqsa Storm, and against the backdrop of political deadlock for their release and the intensification of repression policies in prisons, considered this as a fundamental factor in the decision to carry out the operation. Hamas addressed the inability of international institutions, especially the United Nations and the Security Council, to impose any obligations on the Zionist regime, which operates as a supra-legal regime with the support of America and the West; and considered this also as one of the motivations for carrying out the operation.
Chapter Two: Execution of the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation
Chapter Two of the book described the Al-Aqsa Storm operation as a planned, deliberate, and non-adventurous operation to restore the credibility of the Palestinian issue and used the description “Day of Historic Crossing” to explain the success in penetrating the Israeli fortifications around the Gaza Strip, gaining temporary control over them, and capturing dozens of military personnel.
Hamas considered this operation an unprecedented achievement since the declaration of the Zionist regime’s existence in 1948 and emphasized that Al-Aqsa Storm was a strategic shock that targeted the Israeli security system at its core and erased the image of an invincible army.
Chapter Three: Al-Aqsa Storm and the Falsehoods of the Zionist Regime
Chapter Three of this booklet is dedicated to responding to the falsehoods of the Zionist regime regarding the events of October 7, writing that the Zionist regime sought to manage a broad approach of falsehood and media deception aimed at delegitimizing the Storm and turning it into a narrative based on accusing Hamas of killing civilians and children and committing sexual assaults to justify launching a full-scale war against the Gaza Strip.
Hamas wrote in this regard that the October 7 operation primarily targeted military positions and Israeli forces around Gaza, and what later occurred regarding the killing of civilians was based on the performance and policies of the Israeli army. According to the book, Tel Aviv rejected the resistance’s proposal to release civilian captives in the early days after the attack, but ultimately accepted it during a short one-week ceasefire in November 2023.
This chapter presents a principled position that rejects targeting civilians as part of the resistance doctrine and, citing research by Zionist journalists, emphasizes that the occupying army targeted areas where Israeli civilians were present alongside resistance fighters within the framework of the “Hannibal Protocol” to prevent the capture of Israeli military personnel. Hamas also wrote that a number of the Zionist casualties were reserve soldiers or off-duty military personnel who were wearing civilian clothes during the attack; an issue that made distinguishing between civilian and military difficult.
This chapter emphasizes that the resistance did not target hospitals, schools, or religious sites and did not kill journalists or rescue teams. While explicitly calling for an independent international investigation into the events of October 7, Hamas stressed that another international investigation into the crimes of the Zionist regime’s military against Palestinians in Gaza should conclude simultaneously.
Chapter Four: The Course of War in Gaza
Chapter Four provides a narrative of the genocidal process of the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip and links this violence to attempts to restore the deterrence of the Zionist regime.
According to Hamas, this war showed that the political and military leaders of the Zionist regime are only committed to eliminating the Palestinian nation, and in their official discourse, they even strip Palestinians of their humanity and legitimize their collective slaughter. This is why the number of martyrs in these two years reached 67,100, including 20,000 children and 12,500 women. The Gaza war also left 9,500 missing and approximately 196,500 injured.
This chapter also addresses the violence of the Zionists against prisoners and the bodies of martyrs as one of the most brutal aspects of the war, noting evidence of torture, starvation of the Palestinian people, and evidence related to field executions and desecration of martyrs’ bodies.
Hamas emphasized the Zionist regime’s failure to achieve its most important goal, namely breaking the Gaza society, and adds that this failure is clearly evident in the scenes of hundreds of thousands of displaced people returning to northern Gaza as a devastated area, which indicates the people’s attachment to their land and their confrontation with the Zionist policy of forced displacement.
Impacts of the War on the Zionist Regime
Hamas also addressed the impacts of the Gaza war on the interior of the Zionist regime, including reverse migration, reduced investment, and paralysis of vital economic sectors in Tel Aviv, and referring to the damages incurred by the Zionist regime, wrote that according to estimates by the Bank of Israel, this damage amounted to 100 billion dollars.
The Role of America in Managing the Gaza War
This chapter also, referring to America’s role in managing the Gaza war, writes that Washington, by supplying over 90,000 tons of weapons to the Zionist regime, became a direct and unmediated partner in this war and, by providing political cover through the use of the veto six times in the Security Council, paved the way for the continuation of the occupiers’ crimes in Gaza.
Chapter Five: Hamas’s Efforts to Stop the War
Chapter Five of the book provides a narrative of the path of Hamas’s efforts to stop the war and explains it within the framework of prolonged negotiations from the first day of aggression. Hamas, while coordinating with resistance groups and relying on regional and international mediation channels, has strived from the beginning to stop the slaughter and destruction. This was while Netanyahu insisted on continuing the war as a tool to preserve his political survival, escape accountability for the October 7 failure, and silence his corruption cases.
Hamas emphasized the U.S. President’s proposal at the end of September 2025 as an important turning point and wrote that it agreed to stopping the war, preventing the displacement of Gazans, the gradual withdrawal of Zionists from Gaza, the entry of aid, and the release of prisoners, while rejecting any imposed political trusteeship over Gaza. Hamas emphasizes the management of Gaza by a consensual Palestinian entity.
Chapter Six: The Most Prominent Achievements of the Storm
Hamas emphasized that two years of war in Gaza initiated a series of broad transformations in public awareness, politics, international law, and the public sphere. The book examined these transformations at three levels: “Palestinian society and its ability to endure and persevere,” “the erosion of the Zionist regime’s legitimacy and the tarnishing of its image in the region and the world,” and “the international environment and developments in its discourse, positions, and actions.”
Hamas introduced perseverance as the first achievement at the Palestinian level, considering it a factor in rejecting the defeat of the Palestinian will, proving that the Palestinian people are indispensable and cannot be ignored. The book further emphasized that after the expansion of the normalization process to isolate and hollow out the Palestinian cause and remove it from the international agenda, this operation once again returned it to the center of international attention.
This booklet introduces the scope of damages to the Zionist regime in two spheres: “moral and political isolation at the regional and international level” and “the internal collapse of Israel.”
Referring to the collapse of Zionist myths, Hamas adds that the myth of security superiority, the myths of deterrence, and the ideas of early warning and transferring the battle to enemy territory were completely shattered in this war, and also the illusion of “a safe haven for Zionists in Israel” vanished due to the intensification of reverse migration and the widening of rifts between various currents in society.
Chapter Seven: Hamas Cannot Be Isolated
Chapter Seven of the book considers efforts to isolate Hamas as unachievable, since this group is part of the social and political structure of Palestinian society. The book emphasizes that efforts to eradicate Hamas have not only not weakened it but have increased its popular popularity.
Hamas also emphasized the stability of the popular resistance option throughout the two years of war and wrote that a poll conducted in May 2025 showed that 77% of Palestinians reject disarming Hamas in exchange for stopping the war, while the satisfaction rate with Hamas’s performance was 57% and the satisfaction rate with the performance of the Palestinian Authority was 23%.
Chapter Eight: Priorities of the Current Stage
In the final chapter of the book, Hamas addresses the arrangements for Gaza after the war and emphasizes converting field achievements into a political path to preserve the results of the war. This chapter gives primary priority to the complete withdrawal of the Zionists from Gaza and emphasizes the necessity of breaking the siege on this strip.
In this section, while broadening the discussion space to all of Palestine, Hamas considers the reconstruction of Palestine’s internal structure contingent upon rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization based on participation, activating its institutions, and preparing for general elections inside and outside Palestine, and considers national unity as the resistance’s option to confront projects aimed at eliminating the Palestinian issue.
On the international front, the book also calls for deepening Arab and Islamic relations, activating the human and global dimension of the Palestinian issue, continuing communication with popular movements and international forces supporting Gaza, and emphasizes the importance of the battle of narratives in these developments and solidifying the Palestinian narrative and establishing institutions to manage collective memory and prevent the distortion of narratives. Hamas also emphasizes the importance of the international legal path and the prosecution of the occupiers and their leaders in international and domestic courts. Al Jazeera concluded by emphasizing that the aforementioned book presented a comprehensive narrative of Al-Aqsa Storm as a decisive moment in the contemporary history of Palestine; a storm that shattered many of the prevailing political and security assumptions in the region.