Hamas rejects Mahmoud Abbas’s call to disarm amid Israeli occupation
Hamas, the governing resistance movement in the Gaza Strip, has rejected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s call to lay down arms.
“We reject President Abbas’s call to hand over the resistance’s weapons as long as the occupation remains on Palestinian land,” Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi said to Al-Jazeera.
“We call on President Abbas to rally around our people’s choice and participate in resisting the occupation,” Mardawi added.
“We will not return to partial deals after the occupation exploited them to continue its aggression against our people.”
Mahmoud, who entered the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Friday to attend the 34th Arab League Summit, told Hamas to hand over its weapons to the rivaling PA forces based in the West Bank.
“The Palestinian cause is facing existential dangers and the genocidal crimes it is facing today in Gaza are part of a colonialist project that undermines the project of an independent Palestinian state,” Abbas said in an address at the Arab League summit in Baghdad as quoted by the Iraqi News Agency.
“The Palestinian vision supports the adoption of an Arab plan that supports stopping Zionist attacks and achieving peace in the region,” he said.
“The Palestinian Authority is proceeding with a comprehensive reform process that includes all its institutions,” Abbas added.
Abbas’s call to surrender arms came as Israeli regime forces significantly increased their attacks on Gaza after recruiting tens of thousands of fresh troops, including soldiers and reservists, to expand its occupation in Gaza.
Israeli War Minister Israel Katz claimed that the Zionist forces are expected to enter Gaza as the occupation expands in the coming days, forcing Hamas to give in to the Israeli regime’s demands.
“With the opening of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ in Gaza … the Hamas delegation in Doha announced a return to negotiations on a hostage deal, in contrast to the recalcitrant position they had taken up until that moment,” Katz claimed.
Meanwhile, UN agencies have warned that the Israeli regime’s total blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza has created critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel, and medicines, with warnings of famine on the rise.
The Israeli regime’s 77-day blockade has resulted in widespread famine and increasing mortality rates, Gaza’s Government Media office said, blaming the United States for it after Washington vowed to lift the Gaza blockade in exchange for freeing captive Edan Alexander.
The Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Gaza’s Government Media Office has updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of others, who are missing under the rubble, are presumed dead.
