ISTANBUL (AP) — A high Hamas political official instructed The Related Press the Islamic militant group is prepared to comply with a truce of 5 years or extra with Israel and that it will lay down its weapons and convert right into a political social gathering if an impartial 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 cease-fire talks. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm seemed to be a major concession by the militant group formally dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
Nevertheless it’s unlikely Israel would think about such a state of affairs. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the conflict, and its present management is adamantly against the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured within the 1967 Mideast conflict.
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 occasions conciliatory tone.
Chatting with the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya mentioned Hamas needs to affix the Palestine Liberation Group, headed by the rival Fatah faction to kind a unified authorities for Gaza and the West Financial institution. He mentioned Hamas would settle for “a completely sovereign Palestinian state within the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the worldwide resolutions,” alongside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
If that occurs, he mentioned, the group’s navy wing would dissolve.
“All of the experiences of people that fought towards occupiers, once they grew to become impartial and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces achieved? They’ve became political events and their defending combating forces have became the nationwide military,” he mentioned.
Through the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the potential of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However its political program nonetheless formally “rejects any different to the total liberation of Palestine, from the river to the ocean” — referring to the world 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 resolution would quantity to an finish to the Palestinian battle with Israel or an interim step towards the group’s said aim of destroying Israel.
There was no quick 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 Financial institution.
The Palestinian Authority hopes to determine an impartial state within the West Financial institution, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel within the 1967 Mideast conflict. Whereas the worldwide group overwhelmingly helps such a two-state resolution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line authorities rejects it.
The conflict in Gaza has dragged on for almost seven months and cease-fire negotiations have stalled. The conflict started with the lethal Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel through which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 folks, principally civilians. Militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave. The following Israeli bombardment and floor offensive in Gaza has killed greater than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, based on local health authorities, and displaced some 80% of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.3 million.
Israel is now getting ready for an offensive in the southern city 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 for the reason that begin of the conflict, however that the 4 remaining ones are holed up in Rafah. Israel argues {that a} Rafah offensive is important to attain victory over Hamas.
Al-Hayya mentioned such an offensive wouldn’t reach destroying Hamas. He mentioned contacts between the political management outdoors and navy management inside Gaza are “uninterrupted” by the conflict and “contacts, selections and instructions are made in session” between the 2 teams.
Israeli forces “haven’t destroyed greater than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor within the subject,” he asserted. “If they’ll’t end (Hamas) off, what’s the resolution? The answer is to go to consensus.”
In November, a weeklong cease-fire noticed the discharge of greater than 100 hostages in trade for 1000’s of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. However talks for a longer-term truce and release of the remaining hostages are now frozen, with either side accusing the opposite of intransigence. Key interlocutor Qatar has mentioned 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 prior to now 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 essential political workplace is within the works and mentioned 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 severe a couple of 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 mentioned the group doesn’t know precisely what number of hostages stay in Gaza and are nonetheless alive.
However he mentioned Hamas is not going to 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 navy operations till Hamas is definitively defeated and can retain a safety presence in Gaza afterwards.
“If we aren’t assured the conflict will finish, why would I hand over the prisoners?” the Hamas chief mentioned of the remaining hostages.
Al-Hayya additionally implicitly threatened that Hamas would assault Israeli or different forces who is likely to be stationed around 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 or not at sea or on land, and we are going to cope with any navy power current in these locations, Israeli or in any other case … as an occupying energy,” he mentioned.
Al-Hayya mentioned Hamas doesn’t remorse the Oct. 7 assaults, regardless of the destruction it has introduced down on Gaza and its folks. He denied that Hamas militants had focused civilians through the assaults — regardless of overwhelming proof on the contrary — and mentioned the operation succeeded in its aim of bringing the Palestinian situation again to the world’s consideration.
And, he mentioned, Israeli makes an attempt to eradicate Hamas would in the end fail to forestall future Palestinian armed uprisings.
“Let’s say that they’ve destroyed Hamas. Are the Palestinian folks gone?” he requested.
___
AP reporter Khalil Hamra in Istanbul contributed to this report.
