Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas leader speaking in Doha on 8 February, bluntly rejected calls to hand over weapons or accept foreign administration of Gaza. He framed armed resistance as an inherent right of an occupied and oppressed people, saying „we should not accept that resistance, resistors or their weapons be declared illegal.‟ Meshaal’s comments were delivered in Qatar, a key mediator and host for senior Hamas figures, underscoring the movement’s effort to shape international debate even as Israel presses its own conditions for Gaza’s future.
The statements directly contradict Israeli demands that preceded them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. presidential envoy Witkof on 3 February that Gaza must be fully demilitarized and Hamas disarmed before reconstruction can begin, calling demilitarization an "uncompromising" objective. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another armed group, echoed Hamas’s stance earlier in the month, saying resistance factions had agreed to retain the "weapons of the Palestinian people," widening the policy gap between Israel and Gaza’s armed factions.
The standoff goes to the heart of any political settlement or rebuilding plan: who will hold security authority in Gaza, and under what conditions can reconstruction, humanitarian access and civil governance resume. Israel links reconstruction to security guarantees and the dismantling of Hamas’s military capacity; Hamas insists that Gaza remain under Palestinian governance and that resistance cannot be criminalized. That incompatibility complicates trilateral diplomacy involving Israel, the United States and mediators such as Qatar and Egypt, and it raises the risk that aid and rebuilding will be delayed or conditioned on arrangements unacceptable to one side.
Beyond immediate logistics, Meshaal’s remarks carry symbolic weight. By publicly rejecting foreign trusteeship and framing resistance as legitimate, Hamas seeks to preserve political legitimacy among Palestinians and regional backers. For countries mediating a ceasefire and planning reconstruction, the refusal to disarm forces a painful choice: press for radical demilitarization and risk rejection and unrest, or accept some form of local security autonomy that Israel would find intolerable. Either path promises difficult, drawn‑out negotiations and continued humanitarian and security fragility in Gaza.