Hamas officials indicate intention to disarm if Palestinian state is established – CNN.co.jp

Members of the Islamic group Hamas participate in a military event, July 20, 2017, Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority/Chris McGrath/Getty Images

2024.04.26 Fri posted at 11:31 JST

(CNN) Some members of the Islamic organization Hamas have made statements suggesting that they would give up their armed struggle against Israel if the Palestinians were able to establish an independent state in the territory lost to Israel in the Third Middle East War in 1967. ing.

The message appears to suggest that Hamas’ position is softening, as Israel’s attack on Gaza has made the fate of Hamas, which controlled the area, uncertain. Hamas has long sought the destruction of Israel.

Bassem Naim, a senior official in Hamas’ political wing based in Istanbul, Turkey, told CNN on the 25th that he would agree to disarm the Palestinians if an independent Palestinian state was established.

“If an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem is established and the right of return of refugees is preserved, the Qassam Brigades could be integrated into the (future) national army.” The Qassam Brigades are the military wing of Hamas.

Hamas has so far rejected a two-state solution in which a Palestinian state and Israel coexist, and has advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state across historic Palestine, including today’s West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, said he was not aware of any proposal by Hamas to lay down its weapons, but said it would be an important move if true.

Meanwhile, Ephraim Inbar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic and Security Studies, called Hamas’ demands for the return of Palestinian refugees to their ancestral land, which is now Israel, “the destruction of the state of Israel, where Jews are the majority.” He dismissed it as completely out of the question.

He also described Hamas’s proposal as a “public relations grand scheme” with Western countries in mind. “They recognize that there is a lot of support (for the Palestinians) in the West. They are trying to show that they are good and Israel is bad.”