A Hamas propaganda masterpiece

By Rohan Gunaratna

Introduction

To understand Hamas thinking, there is no better document than “Our Narrative – Al Aqsa Flood: Two Years of Steadfastness and the Will for Liberation” published by the Hamas Media Office, December 24, 2025.

Hamas explains in this manifesto that the Palestinian struggle was no longer on the international agenda and its attack on October 7, 2023 has brought back the Palestinian cause to international focus. There is no regret, repentance and remorse by Hamas and its leadership. As such, the next two phases – the disarmament of Hamas and its allies and the deradicalisation of the Palestinian population – will be a challenge.

The manifesto is produced by the Hamas Media Office staffed by Hamas leaders overseas. As both sides Hamas and Israel seek vengeance, Hamas leadership abroad will be the targets of the State of Israel. Hamas propaganda will galvanise the vulnerable to stage attacks against Israel, Jews, and their supporters.

Although the mediators Qatar, Egypt and Turkey brought both parties to implement the Trump Peace Plan, their ideological positions have not changed. The Palestinian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas sees itself as the vanguard leading the struggle to restore the Islamic caliphate. The first step of Hamas is to destroy Israel and the second step is to liberate the Al Aqsa mosque. As Hamas believed that its group and allies will succeed in its invasion of Israel and the conquest of Al Aqsa mosque, Hamas leadership named the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, “Operation Al Aqsa Flood.” Since then, Israel has developed a preemptive doctrine to dismantle threats irrespective of location either in its immediate or the distant neighbourhood. Both parties perceive their campaigns in regional and global terms and not in local and national terms.

The Context

The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 killed 1200 and took 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage. The Hamas-led attack culminated in a devastating war that caused unprecedented losses both to civilians and property. On December 18, 2025, the Hamas led Gaza Ministry of Health announced: “One new martyr and 13 injuries arrived at Gaza Strip hospitals over the past 24 hours.

Since the ceasefire (October 11, 2025):

• Total martyrs: 395

• Total injuries: 1,088

• Total recovered (from rubble): 634

The death toll of the aggression has risen to 70,669 martyrs and 171,165 injuries since October 7, 2023.[1] The Hamas manifesto released on December 24, 2025, does not acknowledge that the current situation in Gaza was a result of an attack by Hamas and Hamas-led threat groups. The Hamas media office frames the attack as a continuation of a long fight for liberation of Palestine and to dismantle Israel.

“These were great sacrifices from a great people. Over 77 years, the occupation has only increased the Palestinian people’s determination to continue their struggle to reclaim their land and holy sites. The betrayal, horrific siege, and regional and international inaction in confronting the occupation have only strengthened their faith in God and their resolve to continue the path of liberation and return.”[2]

The Hamas manifesto adds, “The Al-Aqsa Flood operation has proven that our people cannot be extinguished, their action will not cease, and their revolution will not be silenced. It has revealed an astonishingly resilient society and valiant knights (freedom fighters) indifferent to their occupier’s horrors. This towering wave of our resistance – ongoing for 77 years – sees nothing on its horizon but liberation, return, and Jerusalem, with an unwavering resolve, unyielding steadfastness, and a certainty in God ́s victory and empowerment of His striving Mujahideen (freedom fighters). The Zionist project has failed to understand the nature of the Palestinian people, their Arab and Islamic identity, their deep historical roots, their civilization and human depth. It has not realized that its fate will be like that of every wave of invasion that has targeted our blessed, holy land throughout history: it will either be expelled from it or buried within it.”[3]

The Hamas rank and file perceives themselves as the fighters of God, the very same way Al Qaeda and Islamic State members perceives themselves. In the past, Hamas focused on Palestine but today Hamas has broadened its agenda. Politically and ideologically Iran and other states have influenced Hamas and operationally both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State inspired Hamas. The threat to stability and peace in Gaza is no longer only Hamas but its partners and even more importantly its patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran led by its Ayatollahs. 

Background

The Hamas manifesto released in December 2025 is an extension of the Hamas manifesto released in January 2024.  While the 2024 manifesto, “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” was a 16-page brief focused primarily on justifying the October 7 attack as a “necessary step,” the 2025 update is 42 pages and addresses a broader scope of the ongoing multi-year war and its political repercussions.

Key Content and Structure

The 2025 document is divided into eight chapters that provide Hamas’s perspective on the origins and progression of the war:

The manifesto contains key areas pertinent to the October 7th massacre, including its:

Major Themes

Key themes to note, especially for security practitioners and political leaders to understand the Hamas thinking contained within the manifesto include:

The Future

The manifesto released on December 24, 2025 provides insight into Hamas thinking. The manifesto mixes facts and half-truths with unfounded data and far-fetched conclusions, very much like the manifesto produced by the Hamas media office on January 21, 2024.

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) analysed the manifesto released by Hamas on January 21, 2024. In INSS Insight No. 1821, February 2024, it’s authors debunked the manifesto released on January 21, 2024 by stating, “Take, for example, the figure of 136 children on average killed each day by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip. This means that 14,000 out of all those killed are children, while according to Hamas’s own reports the total number of dead is about 25,000, and this includes over 9,000 Hamas activists classified as civilians.

At the same time, and for obvious reasons, the document contains no accounts of the barbarity of the organization, and there is a clear and clumsy attempt to present it as a legitimate resistance organization, working on behalf of Palestinian national liberation from the yoke of the Zionist occupiers, and all its paths and methods are ways of peace. The spirit of the document is no less than an oxymoron: “We are a peace-loving terror organization” (as they are depicted in the Israeli satirical program, “Eretz Nehederet” [A Wonderful Country]).”

The Hamas manifesto of January 2024 bolstered and drove the protests worldwide. Similarly, the Hamas manifesto released on December 24, 2025 will frame the narrative for the lobbyists, demonstrators and protesters in 2026 and beyond.

In its most recent manifesto of December 2025, Hamas blames the international community. Hamas states, “The international institutions, specifically the UN and the Security Council, failed to seriously address the issue of Palestine. These institutions suffered from a state of paralysis and ineffectiveness while Israel acted as a state above the law under the American-Western support. The pace of Judaization, normalization, and projects to erase the Palestinian cause accelerated, as the American-Zionist alliance sought to integrate the occupation into the region, bury the Palestinian cause, and turn it into a «file from the past» through successive waves of normalization deals. Despite a large arsenal of UN resolutions in favor of Palestine—until the end of September 2023, the General Assembly and the Security Council had issued 1,180 resolutions—none of them were implemented over 75 years. So what would the world expect from a dignified people who seek to reclaim their freedom and rights?!”

Despite Hamas triggering a devastating war by Israel, Hamas remains a popular movement. Hamas states, “The operation was met with unprecedented popular Palestinian support and became a symbol of unity around the resistance option. A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (published on December ,13 2023) showed that 72% of Palestinians considered Hamas’s decision to launch the attack correct, and 69% expressed satisfaction with Hamas ́s performance, compared to only 11% who expressed satisfaction with the Palestinian Authority ́s performance.”[4]

The think tank Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research presents credible statistics. Although his brother Fathi Ibrahim Abdulaziz Shaqaqi was the founder and Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Khalil Shikaki who founded the Center is a political scientist and is credible.[5] In the manifesto, Hamas adds, “These results came despite the violent aggression launched by the Israeli entity and major military coalitions that resulted in over 15,000 martyrs, 36,000 wounded, and the displacement of two-thirds of the Gaza’s population by the time this poll was conducted.

This overwhelming popular rallying around the resistance— at the peak of the tragedy—was a clear message that the Palestinian people are committed to the option of steadfastness and confrontation, despite the heavy cost.”[6]

The thinking of the Palestinians since the poll was conducted has changed but not appreciably. Hamas and its allies have steadfast support to continue the fight against Israel. However, the Hamas leadership abroad is under the control of the mediators – Qatar, Egypt and Turkey” as well as its patron, Iran.

Conclusion

The mindset of Hamas and nine other terrorist groups that participated in the attack of October 7, 2023 has not changed. They are fixed on the destruction of Israel. Hamas’s original 1988 charter explicitly called for the destruction of Israel and used extensive antisemitic language. A new policy document released in 2017 softened some language and appeared to offer a possible path to a Palestinian state but stopped short of recognizing Israel and maintained a commitment to “armed resistance”.

To Hamas, it is a long fight, and the Hamas manifesto released on December 24, 2025, explains it. “The Palestinian people continued their revolutions since 1920, until in May 1939 they secured an official British commitment to abolish the Balfour Declaration and establish an independent Palestinian state on all of Palestine within ten years; but Britain reneged on its promises. Then, under Western-American influence, the UN voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states (Jewish and Palestinian) in a resolution that deprived the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination, without consulting them and despite owning 94% of the land. Nevertheless, the Zionists established Israel by force and ethnic cleansing on 77% of historical Palestine, and a Palestinian state was not allowed to be established. Palestinian revolutions and uprisings continued in waves that ebb and flow but never cease. The Al-Aqsa Flood operation is just a new wave in these successive waves. The Palestinian resistance had repeatedly warned that this explosion was inevitable if the aggression and siege continued; thus, the strike on October 7th 2023 came with a force equal to the pain inflicted upon our people and to the level of injustice they endured, confirming to the entire world that all conspiracies and pressures will not break the will of this people.”

A propaganda masterpiece, “Our Narrative – Al Aqsa Flood: Two Years of Steadfastness and the Will for Liberation” by Hamas is based on conspiracy and false narratives. Its content should be countered point-by-point to save the Palestinians.

The ruling party of Gaza, Hamas calls the October 7, 2023 massacre a “towering milestone”, when it has reduced Gaza to a wasteland!

Hamas should be disarmed, demobilised and deradicalised and Gaza leadership should be replaced by sensible Palestinians who see clearly what Hamas and the other terrorist entities did to Gaza and to the Palestinians.

——

Rohan Gunaratna is the editor of the Handbook of Terrorism in the Middle East.

[1] https://t.me/gazaalanpa/17153

[2] Our Narrative – Al Aqsa Flood: Two Years of Steadfastness and the Will for Liberation” Hamas Media Office, December 24, 2025.

[3] Our Narrative – Al Aqsa Flood: Two Years of Steadfastness and the Will for Liberation” Hamas Media Office, December 24, 2025.

[4] https://sitemultimedia.org/docs/SITE_Hamas_Narrative_2Years.pdf

[5] The author met Khalil Shikaki in 1999 and it’s staff, and is in contact with its centre staff.

[6] https://sitemultimedia.org/docs/SITE_Hamas_Narrative_2Years.pdf

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