genocide

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.

In 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.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and injured at least 172,000 others.

Obeida urged mediators to pressure Israel to fulfil its commitments under the first phase of the Trump plan before any discussion of the second phase can take place.

“The enemy is the one who undermines the agreement,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on his remarks.

Obeida also addressed Israel’s role in the US-Israel war on Iran, condemning it for launching strikes on Iran “in the midst of the deception of negotiations, with full collusion and conspiracy with the United States”.

The US had been involved in talks with Iran over its nuclear programme in the weeks before the US and Israel launched the war on February 28.

In Iran, more than 2,000 people have been killed and at least 26,500 others injured since the war began.

Obeida also condemned Israel’s renewed offensive “against sisterly Lebanon”, which it launched on March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel.

Israel’s assault on Lebanon has killed more than 1,400 people and displaced over 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

Obeida commended Iran, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis for their continued strikes against Israel.

Hamas’s spokesman also condemned the Israeli parliament’s passage of a new death penalty law that only applies to Palestinians, urging people in the West Bank “to seek, by every possible means, to liberate the [Palestinian] prisoners” held in Israeli jails.

Christians in Jerusalem and Gaza marked Holy Week under wartime restrictions, with Israeli police blocking the Latin Patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre for the first time in centuries. In Gaza, a small Christian community continued Palm Sunday rites despite ongoing attacks and severe shortages of basic essentials.

Settler attacks, restrictions on aid, and land seizures marked a week that was supposed to be one of celebration for Palestinians. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim and Tareq Abu Azzoum explain what’s been going on in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

During the Gaza war, protesters have flooded the streets of major British cities, calling on their leaders to cut off the supply of weapons and other military hardware to Israel.

The United Kingdom’s relationship with its ally is under scrutiny. Jeremy Corbyn, a British MP, set up the Gaza Tribunal to examine whether the UK’s support for Israel amounts to complicity. Doctors and aid workers gave emotional accounts of the horrors they saw while working in the Gaza Strip, and journalists presented evidence of weapons shipments and spy flights allegedly operating from a nearby British air force base. All were making the case that the UK’s unwavering support for Israel is no longer legally or morally justifiable.

In its final report, published on March 16, the Gaza Tribunal said the UK has failed in its duty to prevent genocide and has been complicit in atrocities. It also recommended that the UK end all military cooperation with Israel.

The UK government has yet to comment on the allegations.