In the first years of the First Intifada ( 1987 – 1993 ) , Hamas violence was directed first at collaborators with Israel and at individuals it considered moral deviants , and then later at the Israeli military . A new direction began with the formation of the al-Qassam Brigades militia in 1992 , and in 1993 suicide attacks began against Israeli targets on the West Bank . The first such attack occurred on April 16 , 1993 , when an al-Qassam Brigades operative detonated explosives in a car he parked next to two buses , one military and one civilian , in the West Bank town of Mehola , killing a Palestinian civilian and wounding 8 Israeli soldiers . After the February 1994 massacre by Baruch Goldstein of 30 Muslim civilians in a Hebron mosque , the al-Qassam Brigades expanded suicide attacks to target primarily civilians . The first of the suicide bombings that targeted civilians was at Afula on April 16 , 1994 , when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car next to a bus , killing nine ( including the bomber ) and wounding 50 . The most deadly suicide bombing was an attack on a Netanya hotel on March 27 , 2002 , in which 30 people were killed and 140 were wounded . The attack has also been referred to as the Passover massacre since it took place on the first night of the Jewish festival of Passover at a Seder
in the West Bank town of Mehola
Mehola Junction bombing
Hamas