Hamas official says group would lay down weapons if two-state solution implemented
ISTANBUL (AP) — A high Hamas political official instructed The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is keen to conform to a truce of 5 years or extra with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert right into a political social gathering if an unbiased Palestinian state is established alongside pre-1967 borders.
The feedback by Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday got here amid a stalemate in months of talks for a cease-fire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm gave the impression to be a major concession by the militant group formally dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
But it’s unlikely Israel would think about such a state of affairs. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the lethal Oct. 7 assaults that triggered the battle, and its present management is adamantly against the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured within the 1967 Mideast battle.
Al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militants in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage trade, struck a typically defiant and different instances conciliatory tone.
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya stated Hamas needs to affix the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to kind a unified authorities for Gaza and the West Bank. He stated Hamas would settle for “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions,” alongside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
If that occurs, he stated, the group’s army wing would dissolve.
“All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army,” he stated.
Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militant group in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage trade deal, speaks throughout an interview with The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Over the years, Hamas has typically moderated its public place with respect to the potential for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program nonetheless formally “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the realm reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which incorporates lands that now make up Israel.
Al-Hayya didn’t say whether or not his obvious embrace of a two-state solution would quantity to an finish to the Palestinian battle with Israel or an interim step towards the group’s said objective of destroying Israel.
There was no instant response from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally acknowledged self-ruled authorities that Hamas drove out when it seized Gaza in 2007, a yr after profitable Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority was left with administering semi-autonomous pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority hopes to ascertain an unbiased state within the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel within the 1967 Mideast battle. While the worldwide neighborhood overwhelmingly helps such a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line authorities rejects it.
The battle in Gaza has dragged on for practically seven months and cease-fire negotiations have stalled. The battle started with the lethal Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel through which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 individuals, principally civilians. Militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave. The ensuing Israeli bombardment and floor offensive in Gaza has killed greater than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them girls and kids, in accordance with native well being authorities, and displaced some 80% of Gaza’s inhabitants of 2.3 million.
Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militant group in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage trade deal, sits in entrance of a backdrop exhibiting the outdated metropolis of Jerusalem throughout an interview with The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Israel is now getting ready for an offensive within the southern metropolis of Rafah, the place greater than 1 million Palestinians have fled to.
Israel says it has dismantled many of the preliminary two dozen Hamas battalions because the begin of the battle, however that the 4 remaining ones are holed up in Rafah. Israel argues {that a} Rafah offensive is critical to attain victory over Hamas.
Al-Hayya stated such an offensive would not reach destroying Hamas. He stated contacts between the political management outdoors and army management inside Gaza are “uninterrupted” by the battle and “contacts, decisions and directions are made in consultation” between the 2 teams.
Israeli forces “have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor in the field,” he asserted. “If they can’t finish (Hamas) off, what is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus.”
In November, a weeklong cease-fire noticed the discharge of greater than 100 hostages in trade for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. But talks for a longer-term truce and launch of the remaining hostages at the moment are frozen, with either side accusing the opposite of intransigence. Key interlocutor Qatar has stated in latest days that it’s enterprise a “reassessment” of its function as mediator.
Most of Hamas’ high political officers, beforehand based mostly in Qatar, have left the Gulf nation previously week and traveled to Turkey, the place Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Al-Hayya denied a everlasting transfer of the group’s fundamental political workplace is within the works and stated Hamas needs to see Qatar proceed in its capability as mediator within the talks.
Israeli and U.S. officers have accused Hamas of not being critical a few deal.
Al-Hayya denied this, saying Hamas has made concessions relating to the variety of Palestinian prisoners it needs launched in trade for the remaining Israeli hostages. He stated the group doesn’t know precisely what number of hostages stay in Gaza and are nonetheless alive.
But he stated Hamas won’t again down from its calls for for a everlasting cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, each of which Israel has balked at. Israel says it is going to proceed army operations till Hamas is definitively defeated and can retain a safety presence in Gaza afterwards.
“If we are not assured the war will end, why would I hand over the prisoners?” the Hamas chief stated of the remaining hostages.
Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militant group in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage trade deal, speaks throughout an interview with The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Al-Hayya additionally implicitly threatened that Hamas would assault Israeli or different forces who may be stationed round a floating pier the U.S. is scrambling to construct alongside Gaza’s shoreline to ship assist by sea.
“We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will deal with any military force present in these places, Israeli or otherwise … as an occupying power,” he stated.
Al-Hayya stated Hamas doesn’t remorse the Oct. 7 assaults, regardless of the destruction it has introduced down on Gaza and its individuals. He denied that Hamas militants had focused civilians in the course of the assaults — regardless of overwhelming proof on the contrary — and stated the operation succeeded in its objective of bringing the Palestinian situation again to the world’s consideration.
And, he stated, Israeli makes an attempt to eradicate Hamas would in the end fail to stop future Palestinian armed uprisings.
“Let’s say that they have destroyed Hamas. Are the Palestinian people gone?” he requested.
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This story has been up to date to right the variety of Palestinian prisoners freed throughout a cease-fire in November.
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AP reporter Khalil Hamra in Istanbul contributed to this report.
