Palestinian terrorist teams Hamas and Islamic Jihad each refused to decide to disarming this week — openly defying the peace plan President Donald Trump brokered and each terror teams accepted— with a senior Hamas official telling Reuters he couldn’t say “sure or no” to surrendering weapons. On the identical time, an Islamic Jihad chief claimed on Al Jazeera that disarmament was by no means even mentioned, and Trump is “negotiating with himself.”
The back-to-back rejections expose the fragility of the week-old ceasefire and reveal each terror teams are positioning themselves to stay armed indefinitely whereas demanding political concessions Israel has refused for many years.
In an interview with Reuters printed Friday, Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal was requested instantly whether or not Hamas would surrender its weapons. “I can’t reply with a sure or no,” Nazzal responded — a surprising refusal on condition that disarmament is the central requirement of Trump’s 20-point peace plan that Hamas agreed to signal simply days earlier.
When pressed on what disarmament would even imply, Nazzal challenged the very idea. “The disarmament mission you’re speaking about, what does it imply? To whom will the weapons be handed over?” he requested Reuters, making clear Hamas views giving up arms not as an obligation however as a hypothetical topic for future debate.
Talking Wednesday from Doha, the place Hamas’s political management has resided for years, Nazzal went additional — declaring Hamas intends to take care of armed management over Gaza indefinitely. “On the bottom, Hamas will probably be current,” he acknowledged, instantly contradicting Trump’s plan requiring the phobia group to cede all safety features to a technocratic civilian administration overseen by worldwide displays.
Nazzal additionally revealed Hamas is conditioning any long-term peace on attaining statehood first — the other of Trump’s framework. The Hamas official mentioned the group would settle for as much as a five-year ceasefire however provided that Palestinians obtain “horizons and hope” for statehood, positioning disarmament as one thing to barter solely after main political concessions slightly than an instantaneous requirement for ending the conflict.
Simply at some point earlier than Nazzal’s interview, Palestinian Islamic Jihad went even additional — flatly denying disarmament was ever a part of the negotiations in any respect.
“Hamas and the resistance haven’t agreed to disarm. Quite the opposite, they declared earlier than, throughout, and after the negotiations, that this difficulty had not been mentioned in any respect,” Islamic Jihad Deputy Secretary-Normal Muhammad Al-Hindi instructed Al Jazeera, in line with a translation by the Center East Media Analysis Institute.
Al-Hindi’s declare instantly contradicts Trump’s repeated public statements that Hamas dedicated to disarming as a situation of the ceasefire. The Islamic Jihad deputy secretary-general declared flatly that the weapons “belong to the Palestinian individuals, and they won’t be surrendered earlier than there’s a Palestinian state” — making statehood a precondition for even contemplating disarmament.
The Islamic Jihad chief then mocked Trump personally, accusing him of conducting sham negotiations. “[Trump] is negotiating with himself, it appears,” Al-Hindi mentioned. “The negotiations had been being held between the People and the Israelis on a regular basis, after which the mediators would be told, and they might cross the data to Hamas and the resistance factions.”
Al-Hindi dismissed Trump as basically blind to the area. “He doesn’t perceive the historical past, beliefs, and tradition of the area,” the Islamic Jihad official claimed, including that Trump cares solely about “offers and investments.” Al-Hindi additionally rewrote historical past totally, claiming “Islam has been within the area for lower than 1,400 years. The place was Israel 3,000 years in the past? It existed for somewhat greater than 70 years” — erasing millennia of Jewish civilization within the land of Israel.
The twin refusals fly instantly within the face of the peace settlement Trump introduced Monday on the signing ceremony in Egypt. “Gaza’s reconstruction requires that or not it’s demilitarized and {that a} new, trustworthy civilian police power should be allowed to create a secure situation for the individuals in Gaza,” Trump declared, making disarmament an express precondition for rebuilding. The 20-point plan requires Hamas to return all hostages — together with all our bodies of these killed in captivity — earlier than disarming and relinquishing all governance to an internationally supervised technocratic committee.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace responded to Nazzal’s refusal by making clear that compliance is obligatory. “Hamas is meant to launch all hostages in stage 1. It has not. Hamas is aware of the place the our bodies of our hostages are,” the prime minister’s workplace mentioned in a press release to Reuters. “Hamas are to be disarmed below this settlement. No ifs, no buts. They’re working out of time.”
On the identical day Al-Hindi claimed disarmament was by no means mentioned, Trump warned the phobia teams that giving up weapons is non-negotiable. “They are going to disarm, and in the event that they don’t disarm, we are going to disarm them, and it’ll occur shortly and maybe violently,” Trump mentioned Tuesday.
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