In an opinion published three years after the 7 October 2023 attack, Palestinian scholar Sami Al-Arian asks why Hamas leaders may have considered the existing political situation more dangerous than taking a major risk. He describes this as an attempt to reconstruct the leadership’s reasoning before the consequences were known, not to endorse the attack or excuse harm to civilians.
Pressures shaping Hamas’s assessment
Al-Arian points to five developments: Gaza’s prolonged blockade; the expansion of Israeli settlements and the shrinking space for a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank; repeated tensions around Al-Aqsa Mosque; the imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians, including people held without charge; and the prospect of Saudi-Israeli normalisation that could sideline Palestinian demands.
The author argues that these trends may have persuaded Hamas that maintaining the status quo would not preserve Palestinian political leverage. He also recalls alternatives pursued before the war, including efforts at Palestinian reconciliation, negotiations for longer ceasefires and the 2018 Great March of Return. In his view, those approaches failed to end the blockade or stop settlement growth.
The risks that followed
Al-Arian’s analysis distinguishes the reasons leaders may have acted from whether their decision was sound. He says Hamas may have expected a forceful Israeli response and US backing for Israel, but may not have foreseen the scale and duration of the devastation in Gaza, the extent of Western support, or the limited response from Arab governments and other regional actors.
Those factors, alongside the absence of a broad uprising in the occupied West Bank and among Palestinian citizens of Israel, are presented as possible miscalculations. The essay describes the resulting deaths, injuries and displacement as consequences that any strategic assessment must confront. It does not establish that Hamas accurately understood the likely outcome, and the author’s account of internal decision-making is an interpretation rather than a documented record of every deliberation.
Debate over the decision
Al-Arian argues that the leadership could have chosen restraint, diplomacy, another ceasefire effort or continued military preparation. He also notes why Hamas may have viewed those choices as unlikely to change conditions on the ground. His central point is that the decision should be judged with attention to both the circumstances leaders faced and the grave consequences that followed.
The essay is an opinion analysis. Explaining the pressures Hamas perceived does not justify attacks on civilians, remove responsibility for those actions, or settle the question of whether the operation achieved its aims. That judgment remains contested as the war’s political and human consequences continue.
