Hamas armed wing says disarmament demands not acceptable

Abu Obeida says calling for the group’s disarmament amounts to an attempt to continue Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida has said that calling for the group’s disarmament amounted to an attempt to continue Israel’s genocide.Hamas’s armed wing has rejected calls for the Palestinian group to disarm, saying that discussing the issue before Israel fully implements the first phase of the United States-brokered “ceasefire” in Israel’s war on Gaza amounts to an attempt to continue the genocide against the Palestinian people.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Details revealed of Board of Peace plan for Gaza disarmamentlist 2 of 4Living in the dark: Gaza’s struggle for electricitylist 3 of 4Netanyahu orders military to expand invasion of southern Lebanonlist 4 of 4Land Day in Gaza: Between memory and the fight for what remainsend of listIn a televised statement on Sunday, Obeida, who is Hamas’s armed wing spokesperson, said that raising the issue of weapons “in a crude manner” would not be accepted.The issue of Hamas relinquishing its weapons is a major obstacle in talks to implement US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, aimed at ending Israel’s war on the besieged territory.Since the US- and Qatar-brokered “ceasefire” took effect in October, more than 705 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.Hamas has told mediators it will not discuss disarmament without guarantees that Israel will completely withdraw from Gaza, three sources told the Reuters news agency last week.“What the enemy is trying to push through today against the Palestinian resistance, via our brotherly mediators, is extremely dangerous,” Obeida said.He said the disarmament demands were “nothing but an overt attempt to continue the genocide against our people, something we will not accept under any circumstances”.It was not immediately clear whether the comments amounted to a formal rejection of the US-backed plan, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms.