Hamas refuses to lay down arms

A senior Hamas leader, Khaled Mechaal, said on Sunday that the Palestinian terrorist group would not give up its weapons and would reject any form of foreign control over the Gaza Strip, despite calls from the United States for its disarmament.

Speaking at a conference in Doha, Mechaal said that attempts to criminalize what he described as “the resistance,” including its weapons and fighters, were unacceptable. He argued that Hamas’s armed wing was an essential part of what he called the struggle against Israel in the Palestinian territories.

“As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance,” Mechaal said. “Resistance is the right of peoples living under occupation. It is something nations take pride in.”

Mechaal, a former head of Hamas’s political bureau who now oversees the group’s diaspora office, reiterated that Hamas would not submit to external authority in Gaza Strip.

According to Israeli officials, the Islamist movement still has around 20,000 fighters and tens of thousands of weapons inside Gaza.

Under a proposed post-war plan, governance of the territory, devastated by nearly two years of conflict, would be handed over during a transitional phase to a committee of 15 Palestinian technocrats. The committee would operate under the authority of a so-called Peace Council chaired by former U.S. President Donald Trump.