Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal renewed his call for Israel’s destruction, defiantly rejecting US- and UN-backed demands to disarm the Iranian-supported terror organization and demilitarize the Gaza Strip.

Speaking by video link to a pro-Palestinian Arab conference in Istanbul, Mashaal declared, as quoted by JNS, “The time has come for the ummah [the Islamic nation] to commit to the liberation of Jerusalem as the banner and symbol of freeing Palestine; to cleansing the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque; and to reclaiming Islamic and Christian holy sites.”

Mashaal pointed to the global anti-Israel sentiment that has surged since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, claiming it created opportunities “to remove this entity [Israel] from our homeland and exclude it from the international stage.”

The terror chief denounced US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which requires Hamas to surrender its weapons.

“Protecting the resistance project and its weapons is the right of our people to defend themselves,” he said, adding, “The resistance and its weapons are the ummah’s honor and pride. A thousand statements are not worth a single projectile of iron.”

Mashaal also rejected “all forms of guardianship, mandate and re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and all of Palestine,” dismissing another key element of the US peace plan endorsed by the U.N. Security Council on Nov. 17. That resolution mandated Washington and partners to establish an International Stabilization Force and a Board of Peace to serve as Gaza’s transitional authority.

“This is our land, our homeland, this is our destiny and we are a people who do not break. Two years of war have passed, and all the weapons that came to the Zionist entity from all corners of the world have failed to impose their will on our people. This is Gaza and this is the great Palestine-the one that drives out invaders,” stated Mashaal.

Mashaal outlined Hamas’s post-war priorities: preventing the “Judaization” of Judea and Samaria, freeing imprisoned terrorists, building Arab unity against Israel, “pursuing” Israeli leaders globally, and spreading anti-Israel sentiment in academia, media, and politics.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in response that Hamas was “making a mockery of President Trump’s peace plan,” stressing Mashaal’s remarks were in “direct contradiction of the core terms of the peace plan itself.”