A top Hamas terrorist leader told The Associated Press the Islamic terrorists would agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if its armed terrorist group gets an independent state at established pre-1967 borders.
The AP report on the interview with the terrorist leader did not mention Hamas' refusal to return an estimated 100 remaining hostages – around 30 of which are likely already killed in terrorist clutched – as the start to talks about ending a war Hamas started Oct. 7.
Israel has long maintained the estimated 250 Oct. 7 hostages taken by Hamas were to give the terrorists human shields against the Israeli Defense Forces' response and use them as leverage for a terrorist state on the border of Israel, a country radical Islamic terrorist have long vowed to destroy.
The United States and 17 other countries Thursday will call on Hamas to release hostages as a pathway to end the crisis in Gaza, a senior U.S. administration official said.
"We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now for over 200 days," a statement released by the countries will say, according to the official, who called the joint statement an extraordinary display of unanimity.
The comments by Hamas terrorist leader Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday came amid a stalemate in months of talks for a cease-fire in Gaza. Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the terrorist group officially committed to Israel's destruction, AP claimed.
Israel says giving terrorists a state after its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks is rewarding terrorism and would bring more terrorism.
Israel vowed to crush Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the war, and its current leadership is adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas terrorist official who has represented the Palestinian terrorists in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage exchange, struck a sometimes defiant and other times conciliatory tone, according to AP.
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank. He said Hamas would accept "a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions," along Israel's pre-1967 borders.
If that happens, he claimed, the group's military wing would dissolve.
"All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army," he said.
Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program still officially "rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea" — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel.
Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group's stated goal of destroying Israel.
Israel has long guaranteed giving the Hamas terrorists a state would ultimately mean the demise of Israel, as Israeli Prime Minister spokeswoman Tal Heinrich repeatedly warns on Newsmax.
There was no immediate reaction from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized self-ruled government that the Hamas terrorist group drove out when it seized Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority was left with administering semi-autonomous pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority hopes to establish an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. While the international community overwhelmingly supports such a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government rejects it.
It will only give terrorists a platform to justify their long-stated goal of genocide of Jews and the eradication of Israel over its centuries long blood feud, Israel argues, according to Heinrich.
The war in Gaza has dragged on for nearly seven months and cease-fire negotiations have stalled. The war began with the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave.
The ensuing Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians most of them women and children, according to the Hamas terrorist-run health ministry – without providing evidence – and displaced some 80% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.
Israel is now preparing for an offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million anti-Israel Palestinians have fled to.
Israel says it has dismantled most of the initial two dozen Hamas battalions since the start of the war, but the four remaining ones are holed up in Rafah. Israel argues a Rafah offensive is necessary to achieve victory over Hamas.
Al-Hayya said such an offensive would not succeed in destroying Hamas' terrorist group. He said contacts between the political leadership outside and military leadership inside Gaza are "uninterrupted" by the war and "contacts, decisions, and directions are made in consultation" between the two groups.
Israeli forces "have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas') capabilities, neither human nor in the field," he asserted. "If they can't finish (Hamas) off, what is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus."
In November, a weeklong cease-fire saw the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. But talks for a longer-term truce and release of the remaining hostages are now frozen, with each side accusing the other of intransigence. Key interlocutor Qatar has said in recent days that it is undertaking a "reassessment" of its role as mediator.
Most of Hamas' top political officials, previously based in Qatar, have left the Gulf country in the past week and traveled to Turkey, where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Al-Hayya denied a permanent move of the group's main political office is in the works and said Hamas wants to see Qatar continue in its capacity as mediator in the talks.
Israeli and U.S. officials have accused Hamas of not being serious about a deal.
Al-Hayya denied this, saying Hamas has made concessions regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners it wants released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages. He said the group does not know exactly how many hostages remain in Gaza and are still alive.
But he said Hamas will not back down from its demands for a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has balked at. Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is definitively defeated and will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.
"If we are not assured the war will end, why would I hand over the prisoners?" the Hamas leader said of the remaining hostages.
Al-Hayya also implicitly threatened that Hamas would attack Israeli or other forces who might be stationed around a floating pier the U.S. is scrambling to build along Gaza's coastline to deliver aid by sea.
"We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will deal with any military force present in these places, Israeli or otherwise … as an occupying power," he said.
Al-Hayya said Hamas does not regret the Oct. 7 attacks, despite the destruction it has brought down on Gaza and its people. He denied that Hamas militants had targeted civilians during the attacks — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — and said the operation succeeded in its goal of bringing the Palestinian issue back to the world's attention.
And, he said, Israeli attempts to eradicate Hamas would ultimately fail to prevent future Palestinian armed uprisings.
"Let's say that they have destroyed Hamas. Are the Palestinian people gone?" he asked.
Material from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Newsmax writer Eric Mack was used to compile this report.