The militant group Hamas will accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a long-term truce with Israel, a leader said Friday, apparently softening Hamas' hardline stance and boosting hopes for renewed peace efforts after Yasser Arafat's death.
Sheik Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, told reporters he sees a truce in which Israel and a Palestinian state "live side-by-side in peace and security for a certain period."
Yousef's statements signal an apparent reversal of policy for Hamas, which has long sought to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic Palestinian state. The group has killed hundreds of Israelis in attacks during the past four years.
However, in Lebanon, Hamas spokesman Ossama Hamdan denied the group had changed its policies. "I can say there has been no changes in the movement's stance and policy toward occupation," Hamdan said.
Hamdan said Yousef had the authority to talk for the group, but said he found it hard to believe Yousef made such statements.
Yousef said that "Hamas has announced that it accepts a Palestinian independent state within the 1967 borders with a long-term truce," referring to land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Yousef's comments indicated that four years of fighting with Israel -- during which the military has targeted the group's top leaders -- and the imposition of international sanctions have taken a toll.
Arafat's death last month and a drive by new PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to renew talks with Israel after the Jan. 9 election for new Palestinian leader also appears to have changed Hamas' policy.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath welcomed the new Hamas position as a "positive step" and said the group informed the Palestinian Authority of their new policy during recent talks.
Until now, Hamas had rejected peace accords and carried out suicide bombings and other attacks, killing hundreds of people and badly damaging peace efforts.
Yousef said the Hamas position was new, calling it a "stage." In the past, Hamas has said it would accept a state in the 1967 borders as a first step to taking over Israel. Yousef did not spell out the conditions for the renewable cease-fire nor did he say how long it would last.
"For us a truce means that two warring parties live side-by-side in peace and security for a certain period and this period is eligible for renewal," Yousef said. "That means Hamas accepts that the other party will live in security and peace."
Yousef said Hamas, which announced Wednesday it would boycott the January vote, still planned to participate in Palestinian politics. It previously shunned any role in the Palestinian Authority because it rejected interim peace accords with Israel that created the governing body.
"Hamas wants to join the Palestinian political leadership and there are meetings over this issue," he said. "Hamas being a part of the political equation means Hamas will deal with the other party [Israel]."
Hani Masri, a commentator for the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, said Hamas was weakened by its listing as a terrorist organization by the US and European Union. Those listings led to asset freezes that dealt a strong blow to the group's finances.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion