Hamas is a militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories two major political parties. It governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but the group is best known for its armed resistance to Israel. Hamas was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, and is backed by Shiite Iran and shares the Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was established in Egypt in the 1920s. Hamas has an armed wing called the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, which has sent gunmen and suicide bombers into Israel. Hamas characterizes its armed activities as resistance against Israeli occupation. Hamas refuses to recognize the state of Israel and violently opposed the Oslo peace accords negotiated by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the mid-1990s. Its 1988 founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, although Hamas leaders have at times offered a long-term truce, or Hudna in Arabic, with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state on all Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, European Union, Canada, Egypt, and Japan.