SENIOR Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Monday night that the United Nations plan to deploy a multinational force in Gaza ‘serves Israeli attempts to eliminate the Palestinian cause.’
The Hamas Movement said the UN resolution, carried earlier on Monday evening, fails to meet Palestinians’ rights and demands and seeks to impose an international mandate on Gaza that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose.
‘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.
‘We reject being cornered into a choice between death and surrender,’ Hamdan stressed.
‘The United States 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 is ‘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 resolution, drafted by the US, passed in a 13-0 UN vote on Monday, with Russia and China abstaining.
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 also 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.
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