In 1966, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin took over the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, then under Egyptian administration. The following year, Israel seized this territory during the Six-Day War.

Yassin broke with other Palestinian parties by refusing to oppose the occupying army, in turn encouraging the Islamist movement to weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But in December 1987, the intifada (literally "uprising") of the population of the occupied territories convinced Yassin to swing from one extreme to the other.

Faced with a PLO committed to peace with Israel, Yassin founded Hamas, whose Arabic acronym stands for "Islamic Resistance Movement," dedicated to the destruction of Israel. However, the new organization had no armed wing, but merely a security service, the Majd ("Glory"), whose main target was Palestinian nationalists. The Majd was commanded by Salah Shehadeh, who helped found Hamas in this capacity, with Yahya Sinwar – imprisoned in Israel from February 1988 – as his deputy.

Sheikh Yassin himself was arrested in May 1989, before being sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel. The imprisonment of Hamas's founder led to the creation of a political office in exile, led from Jordan by Khaled Meshal. Until then centered on Gaza, the Islamist organization restructured itself around four "councils" ("shura") representing respectively Gaza, the West Bank, the diaspora, and prisoners detained by Israel.

Sheikh Yassin's authority continued to be exercised within this framework. But the imprisoned leader was not involved in the December 1991 creation of the armed wing of Hamas, named "Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades," in homage to a Syrian sheikh killed in 1935 by the British army in Palestine. The first leaders of the militia were killed one after the other by Israeli law enforcement, but Hamas attacks continued, all the more deadly as they aimed to sabotage the peace process between Israel and the PLO.

It was in retaliation for one of these attacks that Benjamin Netanyahu, already Prime Minister, decided to strike Hamas at the top level in September 1997. But the Mossad hit squad sent to Amman to poison Meshal was intercepted by Jordanian security. Israel not only had to provide the antidote that saved Meshal, but also had to release Yassin, who returned to Gaza in triumph.

Despite their popularity, however, Yassin and Meshal had no direct authority over the al-Qassam Brigades, whose leader, Mohammed Al-Masri, is so elusive that he is nicknamed Deif, "the guest," going from hideout to hideout. In contrast, Yassin, who escaped an Israeli raid in September 2003, was killed in a strike in March 2004. His successor, Abdul-Aziz Rantissi, was eliminated the following month in an Israeli bombardment. From then on, Hamas decided not to reveal the name of its supreme leader. Meanwhile, Deif, seriously wounded in an Israeli raid, retained command of the al-Qassam Brigades.

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