Strategic Assessment

The Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip first set out to crush the area’s Salafi jihadist groups by force. Once Hamas realized that the Salafi jihadi problem was more serious than it had first anticipated, however, Hamas's approach shifted gradually, from a strategy of attempted elimination to one of containment and assimilation. Indeed, several of the pursued militants proved to be former colleagues from the Qassam Brigades who had grown disillusioned with Hamas and defected to fringe groups. This article examines how Hamas, as part of a new and progressive approach, aimed to rehabilitate these individuals by enrolling them in a prison-based deradicalization program that sought to appeal to a common ideological and religious base in Islam, treating Salafi jihadists as patients rather than as common criminals.