However, Israel is unlikely to consider such a scenario
A senior Hamas political representative told The Associated Press that the Islamist militant group is ready to agree of a five-year or longer truce with Israel and that it would lay down its arms and become a political party, if created an independent Palestinian state within the borders from before 1967, writes BTA.
Khalil al-Haya’s comments in an interview with the AP came amid an impasse in months-long ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip.
The suggestion that Hamas will disarm seems significant discount by the armed group whose main goal is the destruction of Israel.
However, Israel is unlikely to consider such a scenario. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after deadly attacks on towns and kibbutzim in the country’s south on October 7 that sparked the war, and its current leadership strongly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state on land Israel seized during the Six-Day War. in 1967
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al Haya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by the Fatah movement, to form a unified government for the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. Al Haya said Hamas would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international resolutions” along Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Over the years, Hamas has occasionally softened its public stance on the possibility of a Palestinian state. His political program, however, still officially “rejects any alternative to the complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the area stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea that includes the lands that now make up Israel, the AP noted.
Al-Haya did not specify whether acceptance of the two-state solution would mean an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an intermediate step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel.
Earlier today, Israel’s Khan Radio reported that Israel’s upcoming military operation in Rafah, the last remaining Hamas stronghold in Gaza, will begin with an evacuation of civilians that could last up to five weeks. In this first phase of the ground operation, the civilian population in the southern city near the Egyptian border will be moved to safer places, the information cited by Reuters said.
Israel’s allies and critics have for months called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call off the Rafah invasion, fearing massive civilian casualties. More than a million displaced Palestinians from other parts of the Gaza Strip have found shelter in the southern city, which is also the main crossing point through which aid flows into the Palestinian enclave.
Despite the pressure on Israel, the government says it must continue the ground operation to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas.
According to Israeli officials, four entire Hamas combat battalions are in Rafah, which they say has been reinforced by thousands of retreating fighters from the Islamist group. Some of the hostages abducted during the October 7 Hamas attack are said to be held on the territory of Rafah.
Meanwhile, Israel stepped up airstrikes against Rafah overnight, killing at least six Palestinians, local medical officials said. In the seventh month of the devastating war against Hamas, Israeli forces also resumed bombing the northern and central areas of the enclave, as well as east of Khan Younis, located in the southern part of the territory.
Israeli warplanes shelled northern Gaza for a second straight day yesterday, breaking weeks of relative calm, and Israeli officials said they were pressing ahead with plans for an all-out assault on Hamas hideouts in Rafah.
