A high-ranking Hamas official is hand-waving statements from the Israeli prime minister’s Cabinet that claimed the terrorist group will have a 60-day window to disarm or face the Israel Defense Forces.
Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, speaking at the Besheva Group conference in Jerusalem on Monday, said that Israel is “respecting” President Donald Trump‘s 20-point vision for reconstructing Gaza.
Fuchs said that according to that plan, Hamas “will have to give up all of its weapons” within a 60-day window — even their rifles, which “will be taken from them entirely.”
at his office in Jerusalem Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023 (Menahem Kahana/Pool Photo via AP)
“We will evaluate [the disarming operations],” Fuchs said. “If it works, great. If not, then the IDF will have to complete the mission.”
The Cabinet secretary did not offer a concrete start date for the two-month disarmament effort, but speculated that it could begin with the Board of Peace meeting set to take place on Thursday.
Fuchs’s comments did not sit well with Hamas leadership.
Senior Hamas member Mahmoud Mardawi, reacting to Al Jazeera Mubasher about the allegedly upcoming 60-day ultimatum, claimed it was purely an intimidation tactic.
“Statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu … and through the media are merely threats with no basis in the ongoing negotiations,” Mardawi said.
Stressing that “the Palestinian people will not surrender,” the senior leader warned that threats to renew the conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas would have “serious repercussions for the region.”
The clash in rhetoric between Fuchs and Mardawi highlights the broader discord over how the second phase of the U.S.-led peace plan struck last year will unfold.
Khaled Meshaal, the chairman of the Hamas political bureau and arguably the most influential civil leader of the terrorist group, rejected the idea of disarming militants altogether during a speech earlier this week.
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“Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those who have led it is something we should not accept,” Meshaal said. “As long as there is an occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is the right of people under occupation.”
Trump has touted his Board of Peace — a body in which he holds nearly unilateral executive authority — as the “most consequential international body in history.”
“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to full and immediate demilitarization,” he warned in a Truth Social post over the weekend.
