A senior Hamas leader said Sunday (February 8, 2026) that the Palestinian Islamist movement would not surrender its weapons nor accept foreign intervention in Gaza, pushing back against U.S. and Israeli demands.
"Criminalising the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept," Khaled Meshal said at a conference in Doha.
"As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation ... something nations take pride in," said Meshal, who previously headed the group.
Hamas, an Islamist movement, has waged an armed struggle against what it sees as Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. It launched a deadly cross-border raid into Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, which triggered the latest war.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza is in its second phase, which foresees the demilitarisation of the territory — including the disarmament of Hamas — along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
