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DOHA, Qatar — A senior Hamas leader said Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist terror group would not surrender its weapons nor accept foreign intervention in Gaza, pushing back against US and Israeli demands.
“Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept,” Khaled Mashaal said at a conference in Doha.
“As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation… something nations take pride in,” said Mashaal, who previously headed the terror group.
Hamas, which vows to destroy Israel, launched a deadly cross-border raid into Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, amid acts of horrific brutality, and taking 251 people as hostages, triggering the Gaza war that raged for two years.
An October US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza is in its second phase, which foresees the demilitarization of the territory, including the disarmament of Hamas, along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have insisted that the terror group must give up its weapons in the near future. Trump has repeatedly asserted that Hamas “promised” to lay down its arms, and has threatened the group over the issue.
At least publicly, however, Hamas has never agreed to lay down its arms.
Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza explicitly says that Hamas must give up its weapons, but the Hamas statement endorsing the plan contained significant caveats and did not directly mention disarmament.
Hamas has repeatedly said that disarmament is a red line, although it has indicated it could consider handing over its weapons to a future Palestinian governing authority.
Israel has warned it could renew its military campaign in the enclave if Hamas does not disarm.
In December, Mashaal said the terror group can “store” its weapons, but won’t give them up.
“Disarmament for a Palestinian means stripping away his very soul,” Mashaal said in an interview with Al Jazeera at the time.
Israeli officials say Hamas still has around 20,000 fighters and large amounts of weaponry, including tens of thousands of rifles.
A Palestinian technocratic committee has been set up with a goal of taking over the day-to-day governance in the battered Strip, but it remains unclear whether, or how, it will address the issue of demilitarization.
The committee operates under the so-called “Board of Peace,” an initiative launched by Trump.
Originally conceived to oversee the Gaza truce and postwar reconstruction, the board’s mandate has since expanded to global conflicts in general, prompting concerns among critics that it could evolve into a rival to the United Nations.
Trump unveiled the board at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos last month, where leaders and officials from nearly two dozen countries joined him in signing its founding charter.
Alongside the Board of Peace, Trump also created a Gaza Executive Board — an advisory panel to the Palestinian technocratic committee — comprising international figures including US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as former British prime minister Tony Blair.
On Sunday, Mashaal urged the Board of Peace to adopt what he called a “balanced approach” that would allow for Gaza’s reconstruction and the flow of aid to its roughly 2.2 million residents, while warning that Hamas would “not accept foreign rule” over Palestinian territory.
“We adhere to our national principles and reject the logic of guardianship, external intervention, or the return of a mandate in any form,” Mashaal said.
“Palestinians are to govern Palestinians. Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza and to Palestine. We will not accept foreign rule,” he stated.
Mashaal was among the senior Hamas leaders that Israel targeted in a September strike on Qatar. However, the mission failed to kill the intended targets, and Israel later apologized to Qatar for the incident.
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