PLO secretary general: Hamas isn’t a terror group, talk of it disarming is unacceptable

The Palestine Liberation Organization does not consider Hamas a terror group, rejects demands to disarm it, and will let it run in the Palestinian Authority’s municipal elections in April, says PLO Secretary General Azzam al-Ahmed.

“All talk of disarming Hamas and their being a terrorist organization is unacceptable to us,” Ahmed tells Egyptian outlet Shorouk News in an interview published yesterday.

“We’ve never regarded them as a terrorist organization,” Ahmed says. “They are part of the Palestinian national fabric.”

For a similar reason, the PLO also rejects the demand in US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan that Hamas play no part in governing the Strip, says Ahmed.

According to Ahmed, the Trump administration rejects any role for Palestinians in governing the Strip.

“They don’t want Palestinians generally,” Ahmed says, pointing to the demand that Hamas play no role in Gaza and to the absence of Palestinian members on the US-led Board of Peace, which is supposed to facilitate Gaza’s reconstruction.

As for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — the group of independent Palestinian technocrats meant to oversee the Strip’s reconstruction — Ahmed says it’s clear the US, with Israel’s support, wants to “take control” of the mission, given Washington’s “empty talk” of rebuilding Gaza as a “riviera” dotted by skyscrapers.

Meanwhile, Ahmed assails as a “false pretense” the peace plan’s stipulation that the Palestinian Authority must reform itself before it can take control of Gaza.

The reforms that the US is demanding, including changes to the PA’s anti-Israel school curriculum and a halt to what Israel calls “pay-to-slay” stipends for Palestinian prisoners, are “impossible” to implement, says Ahmed. He claims that the requested changes to the school curriculum include the removal of the Palestinian flag and the word “Palestine” from textbooks.

“We believe the primary goal of these demands is to waste time,” says Ahmed.

He adds that the PLO considers the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, “was a strategic error that inflicted immense damage on Gaza.” Ahmed also rejects the claim that the attack breathed new life into the Palestinian issue.

Separately, Ahmed says the PLO is “in constant national talks with [Hamas] on fulfilling the requirements to join the organization.”

Under the Palestinian Authority’s recently unveiled provisional constitution, the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PA adheres to the PLO’s commitments, which include recognition of Israel.

The PLO recognized Israel as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established the PA, and which Hamas and numerous other Palestinian factions have rejected.

In a move seen as preventing Hamas and other non-PLO factions from running in future elections — including municipal elections slated for April — PA President Mahmoud Abbas in January signed a decree requiring candidates to sign a statement accepting the PLO’s “national program.”

Speaking to Shorouk, Ahmed says “there was an error in the law” and that it was agreed that even parties opposed to the PLO could run in the April municipal elections, because those elections were about “providing services, not political work.” But the requirement would still hold for legislative elections, whose date is still not set, he says.

A senior Palestinian official tells The Times of Israel that despite Ahmed’s senior position in the PLO, his comments do not reflect the stances of the umbrella Palestinian political body nor the PA.

The official notes that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has long called for Hamas to disarm and accused Ahmed of “electioneering” ahead of the Fatah central committee election in May.