Hamas will not disarm, because that would make Palestinians an easy victim to be eliminated, Hamas’s external political leader, Khaled Mashaal, who lives in Qatar, said Sunday.
“In the context that our people are still under occupation, talking about disarmament is an attempt to make our people an easy victim to be eliminated and easily exterminated by Israel, which is armed with all international weaponry,” he said on the second day of the Al Jazeera Forum in Qatar.
As part of the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, the Gaza Strip is to be demilitarized. Hamas is supposed to hand over control of Gaza to an agreed-upon National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. Critics have expressed doubts that Hamas will give up power.
“It is necessary to provide an environment that allows reconstruction and relief and ensures that the war does not reignite between Gaza and the Zionist entity,” Mashaal said. “This is a logical approach, and Hamas – through mediators Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, and through indirect dialogues with the Americans via the mediators – has reached, or there has been, an understanding of Hamas’s vision on that. Yes, this is something that requires great effort, not an approach of disarmament.”
“The problem is not that Hamas and the resistance forces in Gaza provide guarantees,” he said. “The problem is Israel, which wants to take the Palestinian weapons… and put them in the hands of militias to create chaos.”
Anti-Hamas militias, in particular the Counter-Terrorism Strike Force, have said they receive either support or some degree of protection from Israel.
As an alternative to disarming, Mashaal said he wants a long-term agreement that stipulates Hamas would not use the weapons it would be allowed to keep for several years. Its promise would be guaranteed by nations that are allied with it, he said.
“Hamas proposed a truce of five to seven to 10 years,” Mashaal said. “This is a guarantee that these weapons are not used.”
Dr. Lynette Nusbacher, a former British Army intelligence officer and one of the architects behind two of the UK’s National Security Strategies as part of Britain’s National Security Secretariat, told The Jerusalem Post Mashaal’s timeline likely coincides with how long it would take the terrorist group to recover and rebuild after two years of war.
“Everyone understands that Hamas needs to spend a few years rebuilding, training, and rearming,” she said. “Everyone understands this. Hamas leadership would prefer to do this undisturbed.”
“Hamas can’t agree to disarm,” she added. “That was always a fantasy which the Americans pretended to accept in order to get the ceasefire, and which the Israelis accepted in order to get their hostages back… Now, the Americans need to imagine that leaving Hamas alone for a few years will lead to Hamas somehow disappearing.
“Israel doesn’t have that luxury. Even if the Americans force them to accept a rebuilding phase for Hamas, they will need to prepare for a rebuilt Hamas ready to confront Israel,” Nusbacher said.
According to Mashaal, “Resistance is a right for people under occupation. It is part of international law and the heavenly religions. Resistance is part of the memory of nations.”
October 7, 2023, was a “turning point” for the cause, he said.
“The [Operation Al-Aqsa] Flood and this genocidal war have shaken the world, he added. “There is now a question. The Palestinian cause must have a solution. The fact that 159 countries have approved or recognized the Palestinian state is good, but it is not enough.
“How do we turn the Palestinian state into a reality on the ground? That is the big question we are concerned with as Palestinians, as Arabs, as Muslims, and along with our friends around the world.”
“We want to entrench that it [Israel] is a pariah entity and a burden on security, stability, and international interests – to pursue it and turn it into an entity that loses its international legitimacy completely, just like the apartheid regime in South Africa,” Mashaal said. “We are the owners of a just cause, and the accused is the one who committed the war crime of genocide.”