Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Since June 2007 Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories, after it won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections[7] and then defeated the Fatah political organization in a series of violent clashes. Israel, the United States, the European Union, and Japan classify Hamas as a terrorist organization, while Arab nations, Russia, and Turkey do not.