Hamas acts to protect the today-vestigial-element of native Palestinian ‘right to self-determination’, Rod. For in 2006 she was given a clear mandate to do so, by Palestine’s still-resident (and still-in-majority) constituency in the Holy Land.
That Hamas has been driven to so compromised an action, is no accident. For the likes of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly and amply warned his US peers-in-government – of the intolerable and unlawful actions of the Zionist Occupation therein!