The issue of disarmament has been one of the key stumbling blocks for the progression to the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
Last week, a Hamas delegation met Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo to give its initial response to a proposal from the US-led Board of Peace for Palestinian groups to decommission their weapons.
On Sunday, the spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing rejected any talk of disarmament before Israel fulfilled its commitments under the first phase of Trump’s plan.
“We will not accept raising the issue of weapons in this crude manner,” said Abu Ubaida, whose namesake was killed in an Israeli strike last year.
He added: “What the enemy failed to take from us by tanks and destruction, it will not take from us through politics or at the negotiating table.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously warned Hamas that it will be disarmed “either the easy way or the hard way”.
Abu Ubaida also linked Hamas’s fight in Gaza to the wider conflict between Israel and the US and Iran and its allies.
He praised the missile, drone and rocket attacks on Israel by Iranian forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as an “extension” of what Hamas started on 7 October 2023.
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that day, when about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Israel responded by launching a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, during which more than 72,300 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.