Hamas Leader Offers to Reduce Gaza Rocket Fire but Stands Firm Against Disarmament

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1336 EAT on Wednesday 10 December 2025

Hamas’s political leader outside Gaza, Khaled Meshaal, said the group is prepared to take steps to curb future attacks on Israel from the besieged enclave, but insisted that giving up its weapons would be tantamount to “removing the soul” of the movement.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Arabic’s Mawazin programme, due to air on Wednesday evening, Meshaal outlined Hamas’s positions on several key issues amid growing concern that momentum in ceasefire negotiations could stall as the first phase approaches its end.

Hamas said on Tuesday that the ceasefire cannot advance if Israel continues what it describes as violations of the agreement, claiming the truce has been breached at least 738 times since it took effect on October 10.

Meshaal also told Al Jazeera that Hamas would not accept a non-Palestinian governing authority for Gaza, amid speculation over the composition of United States President Donald Trump’s proposed “board of peace,” a body that has been floated as a potential alternative to Hamas’s administration, in place since 2006.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that former UK prime minister Tony Blair is no longer being considered for the board, following opposition from several Arab and Muslim states.

Blair’s record has drawn criticism in the region for his role in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and for what many view as an ineffective tenure as the Quartet’s Middle East envoy.

Hamas had already objected to Blair’s possible inclusion in September, when senior official Husam Badran called him “an unwelcome figure” and “an ominous sign.” “He has brought no good to the Palestinian cause, nor to Arabs or Muslims, and his criminal and destructive role has been known for years,” Badran said.

The US-brokered ceasefire agreed in October has largely held, despite what mediators describe as frequent Israeli violations and fewer by Hamas. At least 377 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the truce began. Yet at the Doha Forum last week, officials warned that momentum behind the deal is slipping.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, told the forum that the Gaza ceasefire was at a “critical moment,” while the Turkish and Egyptian foreign ministers urged the United States and other stakeholders to intensify efforts to keep the process on track.

All but one of the captives taken to Gaza during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023—both living and deceased—have now been returned. Under the agreement that halted the fighting, Israel has also released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners back to Gaza.

Families and rights groups say many of the bodies of those prisoners show signs of torture, mutilation and execution, leaving some relatives unable to identify remains

Disarmament is expected to be a central point of contention in the negotiations. Israel has demanded that Hamas lay down its weapons, while Hamas officials have offered mixed signals. Meshaal told Al Jazeera that disarmament would be tantamount to “removing the soul” of the group, though other Hamas officials have previously said they would be prepared to hand over their weapons to a fully sovereign Palestinian state.

At the Doha Forum, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan — who has said Turkey could participate in an international stabilisation force (ISF) in Gaza tasked with overseeing Hamas’s disarmament — urged patience. He stressed that disarmament would not take place in the “first stage” of the process, adding that “we need to proceed in the correct order and remain realistic.”

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