Meshal: Hamas will not agree to ceasefire deal at any cost

Palestinian political leader of the Hamas movement, Khaled Meshaal, speaks during a ceremony to mark “Nakba”, the annual commemoration of what Palestinians term the catastrophe in Doha, Qatar, May 20, 2014. [Stringer/Apaimages]

Hamas is not in a hurry to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip at any cost, Khaled Meshal, head of the movement’s political bureau abroad, said yesterday.

Meshal explained in a newspaper interview that “Hamas officials are in no hurry to reach a ceasefire with Israel at any cost, and will not give up their main demands, which are to end the war and for Israel to withdraw from Gaza.”

The movement, he added, “is winning the war and will play a decisive role in the future of Gaza,” noting that “assuming that Hamas will be absent from the Gaza scene after the end of the war is a mistake.”

“Palestinians alone will decide the arrangements for the Strip,” Meshal said, stressing that Hamas “will not give up its main demands for an end to the war and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”

The movement has persevered over the past months and has exhausted the occupation army, he added.

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