Hamas official says group will lay down arms if independent Palestinian state is created

Istanbul —

A senior Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the Islamic rebel group is willing to lay down its arms and become a political party if Israel agrees to a ceasefire of five years or longer and an independent Palestinian state is established on the previous borders. is ready. From .to 1967.

Khalil al-Hayya’s statements in an interview on Wednesday coincide with an impasse in ceasefire talks, which have been going on for months. The suggestion of possible disarmament seemed a major concession from a group that is officially committed to Israel’s destruction.

But Israel is unlikely to consider that scenario. After the deadly October 7 attack that sparked the war, he vowed to crush Hamas and his current government strongly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Al-Haya, a senior Hamas official who has represented Palestinian rebels in negotiations for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, adopted a sometimes defiant and sometimes more cordial tone.

Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, al-Haya said Hamas wanted to join the Palestine Liberation Organization led by the rival Fatah faction to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank. He said his group would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international resolutions” along Israel’s pre-1967 border.

He said, if this happens, the military wing of Hamas will be dissolved.

“All the experiences of the people who fought against the occupation, when they became independent and achieved their rights and their state, what did those forces do? “They became political parties and their defense warfare forces became the national army,” he said.

Over the past few years, Hamas has several times softened its public position regarding the possibility of a Palestinian state with Israel. But officially its political program “rejects any option of the complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea”, in reference to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which includes the land that now constitutes Israel. Does it.

Al-Hayya did not clarify whether his apparent acceptance of a two-state solution would amount to ending the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an intermediate step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying its rival.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized autonomous government that Hamas expelled from Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the Strip’s withdrawal, the Palestinian Authority administers the semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority aims to establish an independent state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza – territories captured by Israel in the 1967 war while the international community largely supports a two-state solution, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Conservative government. She rejects.

The war in Gaza has lasted nearly seven months and ceasefire talks are stalled. The conflict began after an attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which Hamas-led rebels killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 more hostages. The Israeli air and ground campaign in the besieged area has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and displaced about 80% of its 2.3 million residents, according to local health officials.

Israel is now preparing an attack on the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have fled.

According to Israel, it has destroyed most of the two dozen battalions initially held by Hamas, but says the remaining four remain entrenched in Rafah. Furthermore, he says that operations in the city are necessary to achieve victory over his opponent.

Al-Haya said such an attack would not destroy Hamas. He said communication over the war between the political leadership abroad and the military in Gaza is “uninterrupted”, adding that “contacts, decisions and guidelines are made in consultation” between the two groups.

“Israeli forces have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’s) capabilities, neither human nor on the ground,” he said. “If they cannot destroy (Hamas), what is the solution? The solution is to reach a consensus.”

In November, a ceasefire that lasted more than a week led to the release of more than 100 hostages in Israel in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. But talks for a long-term ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages have stalled, with both sides accusing the other of intransigence. Qatar, which has been a key negotiator in the process, recently said it was “re-evaluating” its role as mediator.

Most of Hamas’s top political officials, previously based in Qatar, left the country last week to travel to Turkey, where the group’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Al-Haya denied that a permanent move to his main political office was being prepared and said Hamas wanted Qatar to remain a mediator in the talks.

Israeli and US officials have accused Hamas of not being serious about the agreement. Al-Haya denied this and said he had made concessions on the number of Palestinian prisoners who should be released in exchange for Israeli hostages. The group does not know exactly how many people are still in Gaza or whether they are still alive, he said.

But he said Hamas would not back down from its calls for a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops. Israel has refused and claimed that its campaign would continue until the rebels were definitively defeated and that it would then maintain a security presence in Gaza.

The Hamas leader said of the other hostages, “If we are not sure that the war is going to end, why would we hand over the prisoners?”

Al-Haya also threatened that Hamas would attack Israel or other forces deployed around the floating dock that the United States is trying to build off the Gaza coast to allow aid to arrive by sea. “We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will confront any military forces present in those locations, whether Israeli or not,” he said. As an occupying power.”

Al-Haya indicated that despite the destruction caused to Gaza and its population, Hamas has no regrets over the October 7 attacks. He denied that Hamas rebels targeted civilians during the attacks – despite evidence to the contrary – and said the operation had achieved its goal of drawing global attention back to the Palestinian issue.

Furthermore, he said that Israeli efforts to eliminate Hamas would ultimately fail to prevent a future Palestinian armed rebellion.

“Let’s say they destroy Hamas. He asked, “Have the Palestinians disappeared?”

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A previous version of this report was corrected to clarify that 240 Palestinians, not thousands, were freed during the November ceasefire.

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Associated Press writer Khalil Hamra in Istanbul contributed to this report.