What was the effect of the al Aqsa Intifada on Hamas?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

It is hard to overstate the effect of the al Aqsa Intifada on Hamas. Quarreling between the al Qassam leaders and the political wing came to a standstill. Moderates and hardliners drew closer together. As the IDF swarmed into Palestinian areas, Arafat's makeshift government, the PNA, lost much of its power. Hamas, therefore, had the opportunity to assert its muscle. The distinction among the various Palestinian forces began to blur, and Hamas grew stronger by forming alliances with Hezbollah and the PIJ. It then joined the largest suicide bombing campaign the Middle East had ever seen. In the summer of 2003, PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas brokered a limited cease- fire, asking Hamas, the PIJ, and related groups to end their campaigns. However, the
peace effort ended in August after a suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem. The Israelis responded by renewing a policy of selective assassination? that is, they identified leaders of Hamas and systematically murdered them (see the feature titled "Expanding the Concept: Israeli Selective Assassination" later in this chapter). Hamas passed another milestone in the campaign against Israel: It used a female suicide bomber in a joint operation with a newer group, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (J. Stern, 2003a). Hamas had followed the lead of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the Chechen rebels, who also had used female suicide bombers.