Tel Aviv, Israel – Hamas is willing to give political power and administrative governance of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian unity government, but will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian State is achieved, said Dr. Basem Naim, a senior political official of Hamas, A NBC News.
“We are ready today, if not yesterday, to step back from governance to deliver it to a body, a government, a committee, which is ready to manage the Gaza Strip,” Naim said.
Naim made his comments during a critical stagnation: the first phase of a faint agreement between Hamas and Israel will end on Saturday, and there have been no arrangements to continue the fire.
While there have been few publicly recognized negotiations to extend the truce to a second phase, the office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he will soon send a diplomatic delegation to El Cairo to continue the conversations.
Naim said that beyond that public announcement, Hamas had not been officially notified of Israel’s intention to resume negotiations.
It was not clear if Israeli officials would seek to extend the first phase of the agreement or negotiate the terms for a second phase, which could lead to a high more permanent fire and the eventual withdrawal of the Israeli forces of the Gaza Strip.
Naim said Israel was deliberately delayed new negotiations to create a pretext to return to war against Hamas.
“We believe that this is done intentionally to intensify the situation or to boost the negotiations of the second phase under the threat of returning to war and not retiring from the Gaza Strip,” he said.
Israeli troops are supposed to begin to withdraw from the border area of Gaza-Eggo on Saturday, marking the end of the first phase of the high fire. However, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, on Thursday told the Kan Public station that Israel demanded that his military stay in the Philadelphous corridor, which extends along the southern border of Gaza with Egypt.
The last step of the first six -week phase of the agreement occurred during the night, when Israel released more than 600 Palestinian prisoners after Hamas delivered the bodies of four Israeli hostages killed during captivity in the Gaza Strip.
According to the terms of Alto El Fuego, which were signed with the help of Qatar and Egypt intermediaries at the end of January, after more than a year of tense negotiations, conversations in the second stage should have begun weeks ago.
But instead of returning to the negotiation table, each side has repeatedly accused the other of violating the terms of the agreement. Several of the weekly exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners have been persecuted for last minute accusations and almost cancellations.
Hamas has declared before the Gaza Government of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body, and Israel has made it clear that any plan for Gaza’s “day later” should not include Hamas, which led the terrorist attack of October 7 in southern Israel. That day, some 1,200 people were killed and 250 were kidnapped, according to local officials, causing the 15 -month war of Israel in Gaza who has killed at least 48,300 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and destroyed much of the enclave.
The most thorny question on the way to negotiate the second phase of an agreement remains whether Hamas will disarm or not. Netanyahu has declared the destruction of Hamas as the main objective of the Israel War in the Gaza Strip; Sometimes, his critics have said, replacing the freedom and well -being of Israeli hostages that still stop there.
Although he reiterated Hamas’ offer to integrate into a Palestinian unity government, Basem Naim said the group will only be disassembled and transformed into a purely political party if the Palestinians are granted an independent political state, an condition that Netanyahu and its right -wing allies in the government have repeatedly rejected.
“These are two different clues. Weapons are related to the existence or presence of occupation, ”he said, referring to the continuous presence of Israel in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
If an independent Palestinian state is created, Naim said: “We are ready again to become a political party and integrate our combatants into a Palestinian national army.”
Israeli military leaders have repeatedly made clear that they are prepared to return to war if the agreement collapses, calling the reservists to combat renewed.
Although Hamas is still committed to the high fire agreement, Naim said, the group is also preparing for renewed fighting.
“If they decide to intensify and return to war, we are preparing for all options,” he said. “We have no choice but to defend ourselves, as we have already done during the 15 months.”
