A senior Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the Islamic militant group is willing to agree a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its arms and become a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along the pre-1967 borders.
Khalil al-Hayya’s comments in an interview on Wednesday They occurred in the midst of a stalemate in talks held for months to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm seemed a significant concession by the militant group officially committed to Israel’s destruction.
But it is Israel is unlikely to consider such a possibility. It has vowed to crush Hamas after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that sparked the war, and its current leaders staunchly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official who has represented Palestinian militants in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange, He adopted a tone that was sometimes defiant and other times conciliatory.
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank. He stated that Hamas would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international resolutions,” along Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
If that happened, he said, the group’s military wing would disband.
“All the experiences of the people who fought against the occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their State, What did these forces do? They became political parties and its defending combat forces became the national army,” he stated.
Over the years, Hamas at times moderated its public stance on the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program continues to officially reject “any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” referring to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which includes the lands that now form Israel.
Al-Hajja Did not say whether its apparent adoption of a two-state solution would mark the end of the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an intermediate step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel.
There was no immediate reaction from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized autonomous government that Hamas ousted when it took Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, The Palestinian Authority was left with the administration of semi-autonomous pockets of the West Bank, occupied by Israel.
The Palestinian Authority aims to establish an independent state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. While the international community largely supports this two-state solution, the hardline government of the first Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects it.
The war in Gaza lasted for almost seven months and ceasefire negotiations stalled. The war began with the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave. The subsequent Israeli bombing and ground offensive in Gaza killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities, and displaced about 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel is now preparing for an offensive on the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have fled.
Israel claims that dismantled most of the initial twenty Hamas battalions since the beginning of the war, but that the remaining four are entrenched in Rafah. Israel argues that an offensive in Rafah is necessary to achieve victory over Hamas.
Al-Hayya stated that such an offensive would not destroy Hamas. He stated that contacts between the political leadership abroad and the military leadership inside Gaza are “uninterrupted” by the war and that “contacts, decisions and guidelines are taken in consultation” between both groups.
Israeli forces “did not destroy more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor on the ground,” he said. “If they can’t put an end to (Hamas), What is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus.”
In November, a week-long ceasefire allowed the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. But talks for a longer-term truce and the release of the remaining hostages are now frozen, with each side accusing the other of intransigence. Qatar, a key interlocutor, declared in recent days that it is “reevaluating” its role as mediator.
Most senior Hamas political officials, previously based in Qatar, left the Gulf country in the last week and traveled to Turkey, where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh met with the Turkish president on Saturday. , Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Al-Hayya denied that a permanent move of the group’s main political office is being prepared and He stated that Hamas wants Qatar to continue acting as a mediator in the talks.
Israeli and American officials accused Hamas of not being serious about a deal.
Al-Hayya denied this, stating that Hamas made concessions on the number of Palestinian prisoners it wants to release in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages. He stated that the group does not know exactly how many hostages remain in Gaza and are still alive.
But he stated that Hamas will not relent in its demands for a ceasefire permanent and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops, which Israel refused. Israel says it will continue its military operations until Hamas is definitively defeated and will maintain a security presence in Gaza afterward.
“If we don’t have the certainty that the war is going to end, why would he hand over the prisoners?” said the Hamas leader, referring to the remaining hostages.
Al-Hayya also implicitly threatened that Hamas would attack Israeli or other forces that might be stationed around a floating dock the United States is striving to build along the Gaza coast to deliver aid by sea.
“We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gazawhether at sea or on land, and we will confront any military force present in these places, Israeli or not… as an occupying power,” he stated.
Al-Hayya stated that Hamas does not regret the attacks of October 7, despite the destruction it caused for Gaza and its population. He denied that Hamas militants had attacked civilians during the attacks – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary – and claimed that the operation had achieved its goal of drawing the world’s attention back to the Palestinian issue.
And, according to him, Israeli attempts to eradicate Hamas would ultimately fail to prevent future Palestinian armed uprisings.
“Let’s say they destroyed Hamas. Did the Palestinian people disappear?
