Hamas Proposes Storing Weapons, Not Surrendering Them

A source within the leadership of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas has revealed that the group’s leadership, through intensive communication and coordination with mediators, successfully removed any wording that could be interpreted as a surrender by the resistance. This concerns the roadmap proposed by Nikolay Mladenov to enter the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to Aljazeera on Friday, the source explained that the head of the Hamas delegation, Zaher Jabareen, left the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Thursday after submitting the official response of the Palestinian factions to the latest revision proposed by Mladenov. The source confirmed that during its stay in Cairo, the Hamas delegation did not hold any negotiation rounds, either with the mediators or with representatives of the Peace Council.

According to the source, the delegation, which had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday, was not given a mandate to negotiate. Their sole task was to deliver the final response agreed upon by Hamas after consultations with various Palestinian factions and discussions across all levels of internal leadership.

The source also disclosed a previously unpublicised meeting that took place earlier this week in the Turkish capital, Ankara. The meeting brought together the head of Turkish Intelligence, İbrahim Kalın, and the head of Egyptian Intelligence, Hassan Rashad, with two members of the Hamas Presidential Council, Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal. According to the source, the meeting discussed the agenda for the two-day session of the World Peace Council held in Cyprus.

Regarding the issue of armaments, the source explained that through coordination with the mediators, Hamas managed to ensure the removal of all formulations in Mladenov’s roadmap that implied the surrender of the resistance. The proposal now suggests that weapons be stored, not handed over.