Hamas holds its 23rd Anniversary with a Rally

Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City Monday to mark the 23nd anniversary of the movement's founding.

Hamas ("Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Islamist socio-political organization, with a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by a number of governments, including those of Israel, the European Union, the United States, Canada and Japan.

Based largely upon the principles of Islamic fundamentalism that were gaining momentum throughout the Arab world in the 1980s, Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987, during the First Intifada. Sheik Ahmed Yassin declared in 1987 that Hamas was founded for the purpose of Jihad, to liberate Palestine from Israeli opression and to establish an Islamic state "from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.