A number of Islamist groups opposed to Hamas have had a presence in the Gaza Strip, a part of the Palestinian territories. These groups began appearing in the Gaza Strip in the months leading up to and following the Israeli disengagement from the region in 2005 and have maintained a presence even after the 2007 Battle of Gaza, when Hamas wrestled control of the Gaza Strip from its rival Fatah, establishing its own de facto government in the area.[1][2]
Hamas is itself also an Islamist organization.[3] Nonetheless, these rival groups have rejected Hamas' adherence to Palestinian nationalism and its participation in Palestinian elections. Instead, according to analyst Benedetta Berti, the rivals follow a hardline Salafi jihadist ideology that condemns nationalism and participation in non-Sharia political systems.[1]
Most of these groups appear to have peaked in activity around the late 2000s and early to mid 2010s, and several of them participated as well in the Sinai insurgency in Egypt (2011-2023). Today, they hold only a marginal presence in the Gaza Strip and have been described as being "held in a choke-hold" by Hamas.[2][4]
Besides several documented groups, there have been a number of smaller, loosely affiliated cells that adopt a variety of front names to perpetrate attacks.[1] Many terror attacks in Gaza, such as the 2007 killing of the Gazan Christian Rami Ayyad and the destruction of Crazy Water Park in 2010 were carried out by anonymous cells.
:3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).The most successful radical Sunni Islamist group has been Hamas, which began as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine in the early 1980s.