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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

PLO secretary general: Hamas isn’t a terror group, talk of it disarming is unacceptable

2026-02-25

You needn’t accept it, sirrah. Nonetheless, Hamas must.

[IsraelTimes] PLO secretary general claims Hamas isn’t a terror group, should have a role in governing postwar Gaza; dismisses as ‘impossible’ expected reforms of Palestinian Authority

The Paleostine Liberation Organization (PLO) does not consider Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
a terror group, rejects demands to disarm it, and will let it run in the Paleostinian Authority’s municipal elections in April, PLO Secretary General Azzam al-Ahmed said this week.

"All talk of disarming Hamas and their being a terrorist organization is unacceptable to us," Ahmed told Egyptian outlet Shorouk News in an interview published Monday.

Oh well. Anyway…

His remarks ran contrary to the insistence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump
...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party...
that the terror group give up its weapons in the near future as part of the second phase of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
ceasefire. Trump has repeatedly asserted that Hamas "promised" to lay down its arms, and has threatened the terror group over the issu
However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
at least publicly, Hamas has not agreed to disarm.

"We’ve never regarded them as a terrorist organization," Ahmed said. "They are part of the Paleostinian national fabric."

For a similar reason, the PLO also rejects the demand in Trump’s Gaza peace plan that Hamas play no part in governing the Strip, said Ahmed.

Ahmed claims that the Trump administration rejects any role for Paleostinians in governing the Strip.

"They don’t want Paleostinians generally," Ahmed said, pointing to the demand that Hamas play no role in Gaza and to the absence of Paleostinian members on the US-led Board of Peace, which is supposed to facilitate Gaza’s reconstruction.

As for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — the group of independent Paleostinian technocrats meant to oversee the Strip’s reconstruction — Ahmed said it’s clear the US, with Israel’s support, wants to "take control" of the mission, given Washington’s "empty talk" of rebuilding Gaza as a "riviera" dotted by skyscrapers — a plan Trump championed early last year but which he hasn’t mentioned recently.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that he expects Hamas to be given an ultimatum on its disarmament "in the coming days." He noted the ultimatum would be "not very long" in duration, and that it would be made by Washington, not Israel.

Last week, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said that Hamas will have a 60-day period to disarm, a condition given by the White House, and "we are respecting that."

In his Monday interview, Ahmed assailed as a "false pretense" the peace plan’s stipulation that the Paleostinian Authority must reform itself before it can take control of Gaza.

The reforms that the US is demanding — including changes to the PA’s anti-Israel school curriculum and a complete halt to monthly stipends to prisoners, including terrorists, and to families of slain attackers, dubbed "pay-to-slay" — are "impossible" to implement, said Ahmed. He claimed that the requested changes to the school curriculum include the removal of the Paleostinian flag and the word "Paleostine" from textbooks.

"We believe the primary goal of these demands is to waste time," said Ahmed.

He added that the PLO believes that the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, "was a strategic error that inflicted immense damage on Gaza." Ahmed rejected the claim that the attack breathed new life into the Paleostinian issue. The October 7 invasion of southern Israel killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggered the Gaza war, which was halted by the US-brokered ceasefire in October 2025.

Separately, Ahmed said the PLO is "in constant national talks with [Hamas] on fulfilling the requirements to join the organization."

Under the Paleostinian Authority’s recently unveiled provisional constitution, the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Paleostinian people, and the PA adheres to the PLO’s commitments, which include recognition of Israel.

The PLO recognized Israel as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established the PA as a body to administer Paleostinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and which Hamas and numerous other Paleostinian factions have rejected.

In a move seen as preventing Hamas and other non-PLO factions from running in future elections — including municipal elections slated for April — PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....>
in January signed a decree requiring candidates to sign a statement accepting the PLO’s "national program."

Speaking to Shorouk, Ahmed said "there was an error in the law," adding that it was agreed that even parties opposed to the PLO could run in the April municipal elections, because those elections were about "providing services, not political work." But the requirement would still hold for legislative elections, whose date is still not set, he said.

A senior Paleostinian official told The Times of Israel that despite Ahmed’s senior position in the PLO, his comments do not reflect the stances of the umbrella Paleostinian political body nor the PA.

The official noted that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has long called for Hamas to disarm and accused Ahmed of "electioneering" ahead of the Fatah central committee election in May.

The US-brokered ceasefire plan reached in October foresees the demilitarization of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas, along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip. However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
implementation of the plan has remained unclear, with Israeli officials increasingly believing that stripping Hamas of its weapons will be impossible without the Israel Defense Forces taking action.

In the meantime, the Israeli military is drawing up plans for a renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip to disarm the terror group by force.

Posted by:trailing wife

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