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Interview with Abu-Marzouk: No plan for a truce in Gaza

September 14, 2015 at 2:20 pm

Mousa Abu-Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, has announced that the movement is “arranging” a visit to the Russian capital Moscow, and would like to visit Tehran “for the benefit of the Palestinian cause.”

He stressed that there is currently no agreement regarding the establishment of a truce with Israel in Gaza.

In an interview conducted by Anadolu Agency, Abu-Marzouk said that Hamas’s relationship is “good and strong with everyone,” noting that the bilateral relations between the movement and the countries of the world “should not be influenced by any other relations the countries may have amongst each other.”

Abu-Marzouk stated that Hamas “stands with the peoples of the world and their causes with all that it has,” and called on the Palestinians to “isolate themselves from internal Arab disputes, as well as disputes amongst the various Arab countries, in order to redirect the compass towards Jerusalem and Palestine.”

He explained that Hamas’s relationship with Turkey “is improving day after day” and thanked Turkey and Qatar for their help for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

With regards to establishing a truce with Israel in Gaza, Abu-Marzouk noted that “until this moment, there is no agreement in this regard and there has been no direct or indirect talks [between Hamas and Israel] regarding the truce or a long or short-term ceasefire.” He also confirmed that “there are many initiatives to establish a truce in exchange for resolving the problems in the Gaza Strip.”

“The initiatives that may be proposed by the Israeli side are, in truth, mostly talk that does not meet standards in any way that would lead to direct or indirect talks with Israel,” he noted.

Abu-Marzouk added that “the task was given to Egypt [to oversee a ceasefire agreement], but it failed, and the PA has not carried out its duties to resolve the problems in Gaza, so there was a vacuum in which a number of players were taking action. The most prominent of these players was the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who proposed a truce in exchange for resolving the problems in the Gaza Strip.”

On another level, Abu-Marzouk stated that “our door is open to talk about anything that concerns our people, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. We met with Blair and the UN special envoy in Gaza, and we stressed our right to establish an airport and seaport, as well as open the crossings, establish freedom of travel and movement and lifting the blockade.”

He called on Egypt to resume its role, “as all the attempts and talks have not ended in the desired result,” stressing that Gaza’s relationship with Egypt is “imposed by the historical and geographical facts.”

Lately, there have been growing accusations directed at Hamas by Fatah and other left-wing factions of “seeking to separate the Gaza Strip and establish a state in exchange for a long-term truce with Israel.”

Hamas has denied these accusations and revealed that it held many meetings with Palestinian factions in order to explain the results of its meeting with European and international parties with regards to a truce.

On 26 August, 2014, Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza reached a long-term truce after the 51-day war, under Egyptian auspices. The terms of the truce included resuming the indirect Palestinian-Israeli negotiations within a month of the truce being put into effect.

On 3 September, the Palestinian and Israeli sides agreed to hold indirect negotiations with Egyptian mediation in order to establish a truce. They still have not set a new date to resume these negotiations.

In another context, Abu-Marzouk explained that the kidnapping of four Palestinians in Egypt’s Sinai desert has “disturbed the relationship with Egypt once again because they were kidnapped on Egyptian soil,” adding the he hoped “this issue would end in order to resume better relations with Egypt and for Egypt’s role to return to what it had been in the past.”

He stressed that the individuals kidnapped in Sinai are “Palestinian citizens and human beings, regardless of what they represent, and therefore Hamas condemns this because it is not the act of a country and results in making the route between Cairo and Gaza unsafe.”

Abu-Marzouk confirmed that investigations are ongoing on both the Palestinian and Egyptian sides regarding this issue, noting that “the greater responsibility falls on the shoulders of the Egyptians because the incident occurred on Egyptian land.”

On 19 August, armed individuals kidnapped four Palestinians in Egypt’s North Sinai after opening fire on a bus that was carrying the individuals, along with other travels, from the Rafah crossing on the border between Gaza and Egypt to Cairo International Airport. The fate of these four Palestinians is still unclear, as no armed groups have taken responsibility for the kidnapping.

With regards to the presence of extremist groups in Gaza, Abu-Marzouk stated that “the Palestinian arena does not have a vacuum to be filled by such organisations,” noting that “if such organisations are present, then it is very limited and security in the Gaza Strip is very tight.”

There has been tension over the past few months in the relations between Hamas and certain Salafist groups, especially Ansar Al-Dawla Al-Islamiyah fi Bayt Al-Maqdis, the same group that has claimed responsibility for several rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

As for Israel’s efforts to temporally divide Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jewish settlers, Abu-Marzouk stressed that Jerusalem “will remain the measure for the strength or weakness of the nation”, adding that “the holy Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem are our responsibility and the nation will defend them with all their might, strength and effort.”

He warned against the temporal division of Al-Aqsa Mosque and called on Muslim and Arab nations to confront this ploy by every means possible. He stated that “the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Jerusalem Committee, the Arab League and Jordan in particular, have a duty to take action to prevent the temporal division of Al-Aqsa Mosque before we reach the stage of the mosque being demolished.”

Israeli Defence minister Moshe Ya’alon signed a decree last Wednesday that outlawed the activist groups Murabitun and Murabitat in the city of Jerusalem, declaring them “illegal” groups, according to Israeli Army Radio.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is subject to almost daily raids and attacks by Jewish settlers who claim that the mosque was built on the ruins of the “Temple Mount”, the temple built by Suleiman in Jerusalem and the most holy place on earth for the Jewish faith.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.