Hamas is a Palestinian group. It is a Sunni Islamist political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories1. It was founded by Palestinian imam and activist Ahmed Yassin in 1987, shortly after the outbreak of the First Intifada against Israel1. It emerged out of his Mujama al-Islamiya, which had been established in Gaza in 1973 as a religious charity involved with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood1.
On the other hand, Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamic political party and militant group based in Lebanon2. It arose in the early 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War2. Hezbollah opposes the Israeli State and the influence of Western governments in the Middle East2. It was established in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon War by Lebanese clerics who had studied in Najaf
