Mousa Abu Marzouk
Mousa Abu MarzoukReuters

Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas's political bureau who is one of the most senior members of the organization, said on Sunday that the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993 are long dead and that all existing arrangements have nothing to do with those accords.

In an interview with the Arab21 website, Abu Marzouk rejected the claims against Hamas that under the reconciliation initiative with Fatah, the movement relinquished its basic principles.

"The claim that we agreed to a Palestinian state as a step towards national consensus, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the (West Bank) and the (Gaza) Strip with eastern Jerusalem as its capital, the return of the Palestinian refugees and the removal of the settlements from the West Bank – we agreed to all these things as a gradual program with a national consensus," he said.

Abu Marzouk rejected the demand of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the armed militias in Gaza disarm, saying, "The resistance is the right of the Palestinian people and the right of all the resistance organizations, and on this basis we say that the weapon of the resistance will not be included in the issues (in the framework of the reconciliation talks with Fatah)."

Hamas's leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, previously declared that the weapons held by the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's “military wing”, will continue to serve as the spearhead in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Hamas officials have previously claimed that Abbas's representatives never demanded that Hamas and other terrorist groups disarm as part of the reconciliation agreement.