HAMAS will not take steps towards placing its weapons under centralised control or storing them until Israeli forces have withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, Ghazi Hamad, a member of the movement’s negotiating delegation, has said.
The arsenal is to be held under the responsibility and supervision of the National Committee, a point on which Hamas spoke ‘clearly and unequivocally’, Hamad said. ‘Israel will have no part in the process. Nor can the weapons be treated apart from reconstruction.’
The undertaking is ‘conditional upon Israel fulfilling a number of commitments, particularly the full implementation of the first phase, the beginning of the gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the entry of the National Committee, the deployment of international forces, and the dismantling of armed gangs,’ he said.
Hamad called the Cairo negotiations ‘difficult and tough’, saying the delegation had worked for the best outcome available while holding to the movement’s national objectives and the rights of the Palestinian people.
The latest round opened last Wednesday at New Alamein City in Egypt, where the Hamas delegation met Egyptian officials led by the General Intelligence Service director, Hassan Rashad, with Qatari and Turkish mediators taking part.
Those talks concerned the implementation of the agreement’s second phase, and followed discussions that began in Cairo on 6 June between Palestinian factions and the three mediating states on mechanisms for reaching that phase and settling outstanding questions.
The Gaza Administration Committee is to review the territory’s financial and administrative affairs, protect and recover public assets with international support, and assess legitimate obligations to suppliers and contractors, with payments capped at $400 million.
The measures are to be carried out gradually over three years, in an order of priority set by the committee.
A Hamas leadership delegation headed by the political bureau chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, met the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, on Thursday.
The two sides discussed Israel’s continued escalation and its daily violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, the killings and assassinations, settler crimes and provocations in the occupied West Bank, and incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to a Hamas statement.
They also went over Palestinian unity and the recently announced plan to hold elections, stressing the need for national consensus to reorganise the political house under a strategic vision that preserves unity and safeguards national interests.
