HAMAS and Fatah have given sharply different responses to the adoption of Monday’s United Nations Security Council vote in favour of the Trump plan for the future of Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan expressed rejection of the US draft resolution to deploy a multinational force in the Gaza Strip under president Donald Trump’s plan to end the war, warning that ‘it serves Israeli attempts to eliminate the Palestinian cause’.
‘The plan does not aim to protect the Palestinian people from genocide, but rather seeks to establish a force that replaces the occupation in the Gaza Strip. It eliminates any prospect of establishing a Palestinian state and strengthens Palestinians’ conviction that resistance is the path to ending the occupation,’ Hamdan said in a statement on Monday.
‘We reject being cornered into a choice between death and surrender,’ Hamdan stressed.
‘The US proposal contradicts international charters and resolutions and ignores the fact that the occupation is the root of the problem. I consider its adoption a dangerous precedent that demonstrates the dominance of force over international legitimacy,’ the Hamas official added.
He said that the Arab-Islamic model presented by Egypt was ‘the most suitable framework for managing the Gaza Strip’, stressing that the issue of the resistance’s weapons was never on the agenda of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations.
The UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted on Monday a US-drafted resolution endorsing president Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza and authorising an international stabilisation force for the Palestinian enclave.
The Hamas Movement rejected the resolution, saying it failed to meet Palestinians’ rights and demands and sought to impose an international mandate on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose.
The resolution, drafted by the US as part of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, passed in a 13-0 vote on Monday, while Russia and China abstained from the vote.
The text of the resolution says member states can take part in the Trump-chaired board of peace envisioned as a transitional authority that would oversee reconstruction and economic recovery of Gaza. It also authorises the international stabilisation force to demilitarise Gaza.
Notably, the resolution contains a reference to Palestinian statehood, but it provides no timeline for it.
‘After the (Palestinian Authority) reform programme is faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood,’ the resolution said.
‘The US will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence,’ it added.
After Monday’s vote, Hamas said that giving any stabilisation force ‘tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality and turns it into a party to the conflict’.
‘Any international force, if established, must be deployed only at the borders to separate forces, monitor the ceasefire, and must be fully under UN supervision,’ Hamas added.
In contrast, Fatah welcomed the resolution, saying: ‘The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Palestine Authority has welcomed the adoption of the resolution by the UN General Assembly’, which it claims reaffirms ‘the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including their right to independence, return, and to live in their homeland free from Israeli occupation.’
In a press statement, the Ministry emphasised that this right is inalienable, not subject to any conditions, restrictions, or compromises, and cannot be negotiated under any circumstances.
It claimed that this resolution is fully consistent with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice regarding the illegality of the Israeli occupation and the necessity of ending it immediately and without delay, as it constitutes the greatest obstacle to the Palestinian people’s ability to exercise their right to self-determination and establish their independent state on their land.
It expressed deep appreciation to the countries that voted in favour of the resolution, and called on them to translate this support into practical steps that would enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and end the Israeli occupation, in accordance with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, which affirmed the illegality of the occupation and the need to end it immediately and without delay, as it is the only way to achieve security, peace and stability in the Middle East.
However, Hamas is determined that the people of Gaza will be in charge of their future and make all of the major decisions.
The workers of the world have a big role to play in the current struggle. They must insist that the Palestinian state is established now and that the Palestinian masses will decide the future development of the area, including the right to return and with Jerusalem as their capital.
