Razi Hamed, a senior Hamas official, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the agreement Hamas signed involves storing weapons under the supervision of the new Palestinian government, not handing them over. He described the arrangement as 'a Palestinian internal affair that does not concern foreigners' and stated that without an Israeli withdrawal and the dismantling of 'Israel's militias in Gaza,' Hamas will not act on the deal.
In a fresh statement on Friday, senior Hamas negotiator Razi Hamed told Al Jazeera that the agreement Hamas signed involves storing weapons under the supervision of the new Palestinian government, not handing them over. He described the arrangement as 'a Palestinian internal affair that does not concern foreigners' and reiterated that without an Israeli withdrawal and the dismantling of what he called 'Israel's militias in Gaza,' the group will not take any action on the deal.
The remarks come hours after Hamed told the Wall Street Journal that Hamas had not agreed to disarmament or Israeli involvement, and he previously told Al Jazeera that disarmament would not begin before an Israeli withdrawal. The emerging framework, as reported by Channel 12 and other outlets, envisions a 6-8 month process of weapons storage under a technocrat-led Palestinian committee, with amnesty for those who hand over arms and a phased IDF withdrawal.
Hamed's latest framing, labeling the weapons arrangement as 'internal,' appears to reinforce Hamas's position that the process is not a surrender of its military capacity but a temporary storage under Palestinian oversight. The statement further widens the gap between the diplomatic narrative of a historic disarmament agreement and the reality on the ground, as the terror group continues to condition any action on full Israeli withdrawal.
2 developments
- DevelopingSenior Hamas official says group agreed to store weapons, not disarm, in response to Trump
- DevelopingHamas tells Al-Hadath: Gaza's weapons must be held by a Palestinian Authority
- StrongHamas: Gaza deal details may be published Friday, weapons transfer internal Palestinian affair
- StrongHamas, Islamic Jihad reject disarmament reports; Hamed tells WSJ no to Israeli involvement
Source and signal
- Open-source intake